Tonight and the Rest of Our Lives
by FebWriter
Summary: Roger and Holly start the next phase of their life together. This is their journey from Holly telling Roger, "I'm ready. Let's get married," to the end of the week of the Fifth Street Fire.
1. I'm Ready, Let's Get Married

**Here's the second story. It's a long one, and the whole thing won't be posted in one day, seeing as how I'm still working on it, but I decided to start posting it. This is the sequel to "Everything Is Different Now," so you should really read that one first. A few more characters appear in this one besides Holly and Roger, including Maureen Bauer. In this alternate universe/timeline I'm creating, she never crashed her car and didn't die. I like the friendship she and Roger had, so I'm keeping it going.**

_December 24, 1994-Holly and Roger's house, the hour approaching Christmas morning_

Holly and Roger returned home from spending Christmas Eve at Ross and Blake's house, along with a visit to Vanessa's to spend some time with Peter. Only the lights of the Christmas tree illuminated their living room. Holly sat on the couch with her shoes off, her legs tucked under her, and Roger joined her after lighting the candles on the mantel and getting the fire in the fireplace blazing. He slid his arm around her shoulders, and she rested her head on his shoulder. "You've been quiet since we got home," he said.

"I was just thinking about where we were this time last year," Holly replied. She lifted her head, and Roger turned his head to look at her. "I was never so relieved in my life as I was when I realized you were really here...although the way you keeled over nearly stopped my heart."

Roger looked over at the area where he had collapsed one year earlier with the bullet Billy Lewis had pumped into him still in his chest. Holly followed his gaze. "As sad as this will sound, that was actually one of my better Christmases, because I was with you," he said. They were both silent for a moment, remembering. Then Roger looked at Holly and said, "I promise, I got you something better than mousetraps this year."

Holly smiled, then said, "Actually, I have a gift I want to give you right now."

Roger looked over at the Christmas tree and the gifts underneath it. "Is it the big one or the little one?" he asked with a grin.

"It's not something you can unwrap," Holly replied. Roger swung his gaze back to Holly, puzzled. In response, Holly brought her right hand up from her lap, removed the engagement ring Roger had given her six months ago, the week after Ross and Blake's wedding, and slid it onto her left-hand ring finger. Once the ring was in place on her left hand, she dropped her right hand back to her lap and kept her left hand up. Then she looked Roger right in the eye and said, "I'm ready. Let's get married."

In that instant, Roger was whirled back in time to when he had first given Holly that ring...

_"Roger..." Holly said, surprised._

_Roger was on his knees at Holly's feet, holding up the open ring box with the marquis-cut diamond flanked by two sapphires on a white-gold band that he had chosen just a day earlier. "Clearly you're surprised," he said. "And I know I've mentioned this before, and I've even asked before..." His face momentarily clouded, remembering the morning after they had made love at Cliff House almost one year earlier. "But there's no pressure."_

_"There's not?" Holly asked, raising an eyebrow._

_"What's the saying? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?" Roger inquired. "I'm not going to demand an answer right now. I'm not going to demand an answer at all, in fact." Roger removed the ring from its box and held the band between his thumb and forefinger so that Holly could see the diamond and sapphires. "I'm just stating my intentions and putting the offer on the table. I want to marry you, Hol. But not until you're ready to marry me."_

_"It's a beautiful ring," Holly replied._

_Roger exhaled a sigh of relief. "Then you do like the ring," he said._

_"I love the ring," Holly said, looking from the ring to Roger. "And I love you. I'm just...I'm not ready. Not yet."_

_Roger reached for Holly's right hand and slipped the ring onto her right-hand ring finger. "How about this?" he asked. "How about you wear the ring on your right hand, and when you're ready, you move it to your left hand?"_

_Holly looked at the ring on her right hand. "Okay," she agreed._

_"Okay," Roger echoed with a smile. He and Holly both looked down at the ring on her right hand, admiring it._

_ "You know what this means, don't you?" she asked. Roger looked up at her, unsure of what she was getting at. She ran the fingers of her left hand through his hair and smiled at him as she said, "We're engaged to be engaged." _

_ Roger grinned as her meaning sank in. It wasn't a "no," it wasn't_ _an "Ask me again in a year or so." They were engaged to be engaged. She would move the ring when she was ready, and that was enough. _

_He rose from the floor and sat beside Holly on the edge of the bed, still holding her right hand, which was now adorned with his ring. She leaned in and kissed him._

_"Thank you for understanding," she whispered when she pulled back. "And for waiting."_

_"You're worth the wait," he replied, pulling her into his arms to kiss her again._

Now here they were, almost six months since that night, and Holly had moved the ring! She was ready_. _She wanted to get married! To him!

Several emotions played over Roger's face in rapid-fire succession: uncertainty, as if he wondered if he might be dreaming; fear that somehow this wasn't real; hope that it **was **real; and finally sheer joy, as he realized that it was, indeed, very real. "Oh, Holly," he said. He pulled her into his lap and hugged her tightly. She gave a happy little laugh as she threw her arms around him. She was surprised, though, when she drew back to look at him and saw that the expression on his face had morphed from one of pure joy to one of worry.

"What? What's wrong?" Holly asked anxiously.

Roger swallowed hard before meeting Holly's gaze. "I can't give you the wedding you deserve," he said dispiritedly.

Holly knew what this was about: Ed and Maureen's vow renewal. After being separated for most of 1993 because of Ed's affair with Lillian Raines, Ed and Maureen Bauer had reconciled in September of 1993, and Ed had surprised Maureen in October with a big, splashy vow renewal ceremony that most of Springfield had turned out for...including Holly, as an invited guest, and Roger, as someone who crashed the reception to congratulate Maureen and get in a couple of digs at Ed. Holly had seen Maureen and Roger talking outside when she left the Lakeland Country Club ballroom to get some fresh air, but she had never let on that she'd known Roger had been there, although since Maureen was probably the closest thing he had to a best friend, she hadn't been surprised-and neither had Maureen-when Roger had shown up.

But Roger and Holly were Roger and Holly, not Ed and Maureen, and even if most of Springfield still thought Holly was insane to get back together with Roger, and still couldn't see Roger as anything but evil, Holly still didn't want a big, public wedding, because that was not her or their style.

Gently cupping Roger's chin in her hand so that he had to hold her gaze, she asked him, "When have I ever given you the impression that I want the entire town of Springfield at our wedding? Or a six-tiered cake, a champagne fountain, and fireworks over the lake? You know me better than that. At least, you'd better, since we're getting married." She took his hands in hers and squeezed them. "I already have what I want, Roger. I have you. And I just want to be married to you."

This brightened Roger's mood considerably. "If you only knew how long I've waited to hear you say that," he said, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "So, what is your dream wedding, if it's not something big and grand?"

"You. Blake, because she would never forgive us if we got married without her, and Ross, and a qualified officiate. Something intimate that's just about us," Holly replied.

"Then that's what we'll do," Roger said firmly. The smile returned to Roger's face, causing Holly's own smile to return. "I'd marry you tonight if I could, but I promised you no pressure when I first gave you this ring." He took Holly's hand in his and ran his thumb over the ring now on her left hand. "So I leave it up to you. When do you want to get married?"

"How about in four days?" Holly asked.

"Four days?" Roger asked.

"There's a three-day waiting period after getting the marriage license," Holly explained. "Everything's closed now for Christmas, but we can go down to the courthouse first thing in the morning on the 26th to get the license. That gives us three days to do everything: get dresses for Blake and me, have your tux cleaned and pressed, and for you to get the rings and find a Justice of the Peace, and for me to get the flowers and arrange everything for a short honeymoon. We get married on the 29th, ring in the New Year as husband and wife away from it all, and come back on January 2. What do you think?"

"I think you're amazing," Roger replied. "And it sounds perfect to me. It's the wedding you want, so it's the wedding I want. What did you have in mind for this honeymoon you mentioned?"

Now Holly looked a little nervous. "Well, like I said, all I have to do is confirm a few things. I hope that's all right."

"Anywhere with you is exactly where I want to be," Roger assured her. "Does this mean no hints?"

"Well..." Holly considered for a moment. "It's a place of significance for us, and it will have even more significance after we get there."

"That's the worst hint ever," Roger said, mock complaining. Then he grinned. "But I'm very intrigued."

"I have to keep you on your toes, especially now that we're getting married," Holly replied. "I don't want you getting bored, or going out and looking for trouble...at least, not unless I'm right there with you."

"Bored? Not possible," Roger said. Then he grew serious. "We'll get it right this time, Holly. I swear. I'll spend the rest of my life making you happy, and I won't keep things from you, and..."

Holly touched a fingertip to Roger's lips. "Save it for your vows," she said softly. The fire cracked and popped as it absorbed another log.

"You're really going to marry me?" Roger asked, making absolutely sure he wasn't dreaming.

"I'm really going to marry you," Holly declared. She glanced at the clock on the mantel and added, "In four days."

Roger locked eyes with Holly, giving her a mingled look of awe and love. Holly rested her hands on Roger's shoulders, then leaned forward and kissed him softly. The kiss grew in intensity and passion as Roger pulled Holly closer and held her in a fierce embrace. She could feel his heart pounding, and felt her own heart speed up in reply. When the need for oxygen forced them to break the kiss, Holly drew back just enough to rest her forehead against Roger's as they both tried to catch their breath. She felt Roger trail a fingertip gently down her cheek, and they kissed again, safe in each other's arms and secure in each other's love as Christmas morning stole over Springfield.


	2. Promises Made and Telling Blake & Ross

_December 25, 1994, 9:00 AM-Holly and Roger's house_

Roger slowly came awake on Christmas morning, the warm, solid weight of Holly using his chest for a pillow, her arm across his waist, the first thing he was aware of. Her moving of the ring the night before, and her simple declaration of "I'm ready. Let's get married," came back to him, and his lips curved into a grin. Holly stirred then, opened her eyes, lifted her head and looked up at him. Seeing his grin, she returned it with a sleepy smile of her own. "Good morning. Merry Christmas," she said softly.

"Merry Christmas," he replied before kissing her forehead. "How did you sleep?"

Holly scooted up slightly to peck a kiss on his lips, then rested her head in the crook of Roger's neck, closed her eyes, and snuggled closer to him beneath the comforter. "Mmmm, wonderfully," she replied, "because I was sleeping in the arms of my fiancé." They were both silent for a moment, then Holly asked, eyes still closed, "What time is it?"

Roger looked at the alarm clock. "A little after nine," he replied.

"Blake and Ross won't be here 'til eleven," Holly said. She was perfectly content to spend most of the next two hours lying in bed in Roger's arms.

But Roger had something on his mind. "Could we talk?" he asked.

Holly, sensing the seriousness of Roger's mood, opened her eyes and sat up, her back against the headboard. "Is it about the wedding?" she asked.

"In a way," Roger said. He looked down at the comforter, where he was idly tracing a finger over the pattern. Holly reached out and stilled his movement by resting her hand over his.

"What is it?" she asked.

Roger looked up at Holly and said, "I'm happier than I've ever been in my life. I need you to know that."

"I am too," she replied. "But?"

"I just..." He trailed off, seemingly uncertain of how to continue.

"Just what?" Holly prodded gently.

"Why now?" Roger asked. "Please don't be angry that I'm asking," he added hurriedly. "I **want **to get married, and I want the wedding you described last night, and I want it in four days. But what made you decide to say yes now?"

"I was wondering when you'd ask that," Holly admitted with a smile. Roger looked surprised for the briefest of seconds, then smiled and shook his head. Holly nodded. "I knew you would. I do know how that mind of yours works after all these years."

Roger, his mind eased now that he knew Holly wasn't upset or angry with him for asking, said, "Touché."

Holly, still holding his hand, threaded her fingers through his, then turned their intertwined hands over, looked down at her engagement ring, then looked back up at Roger. "I've been working toward this since you gave me this ring last summer," she began. She paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts before continuing, holding Roger's earnest gaze all the while. "We are in a better place now than we have ever been. Before this year, it was always one step forward and two, or three, or ten steps backward for us. I would get scared and retreat behind my brick walls and shut you out. You would get angry or impatient or full of yourself and shut out everyone and everything with behavior that was destructive to both yourself and everyone around you.

"But it's different now. **We're** different now. We've learned how to make each other and our relationship the top priority in our lives, and we're learning how to break the destructive old patterns of behavior that always destroyed us in the past, with some excellent guidance.

"You include me in everything now; whatever you're thinking, whatever you're planning, you tell me-usually right away. You don't keep things from me anymore. I have an all-access pass to your life. And I'm not scared anymore. I'm not hiding behind my brick walls anymore. I'm letting you in as much as you're letting me in. At first, I had to consciously remind myself to tell you how I was feeling, or what I was thinking. But I've noticed in the past couple of months that I don't have to remind myself anymore. I just do it. I just tell you. Because I want to tell you.

"We're a team, in every sense of the word. I'm just...I'm ready. I'm ready to let you all the way in, to share my life with you completely, on every level. You said last night that you realized insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I agree. And you have been so patient with me since you gave me this ring last summer."

"I've learned a lot in the past year, with your help, and the help of the good doctor," Roger replied. "I've learned that pushing you and pressuring you only hurts us both, because you get hurt and shut down when I push you or pressure you. Then you pull away from me, and that hurts me."

"Exactly!" Holly exclaimed. "And I've made mistakes with you and hurt you, too. I would hold back or run away when I thought that you were getting too close, or that you wanted too much from me. But I know now that you want to be close to me and you want all of me because you love me. That's all. And I'm finally ready for that. I love you, and I am ready to give you, to give us, all of me."

Roger lifted Holly's hand to his lips and kissed it. "You won't regret marrying me," he vowed fervently. "I swear you will never, ever regret giving me, giving us, this chance."

Holly touched Roger's face. "For all that we've learned, and all that we're still learning, I know that I'm not the easiest person in the world to live with. But I promise, I'll be the best wife to you that I possibly can."

"I know you will," Roger said. "And I'm not easy to live with either. But I will do everything in my power to be the husband you deserve, and we'll figure marriage out together, like we do with everything else."

"Yes, we will," Holly replied, resting her forehead against Roger's. "We definitely will."

_December 25, 1994, 11:01 AM—Holly and Roger's House_

"Christmas Day with the outlaw in-laws," Ross Marler remarked as he followed his wife Blake up to her parents' front porch, carrying the pecan pie he had picked up at the bakery the day before.

"When they came over last night, it was fine," Blake reminded him. "Besides, it's only for a few hours." She gave him a saucy grin then. "If you're good, I'll let you unwrap me under the Christmas tree again when we get home."

"I just hope Roger doesn't talk about getting me out to the Jessup farm to chop wood again, like he did at Thanksgiving," Ross said as Blake rang the doorbell.

"But you'd look so sexy in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt!" Blake exclaimed.

Holly opened the door then, Roger right behind her, looking over her shoulder. "Merry Christmas!" Holly and Roger said almost in unison.

Blake entered the house, Ross right behind her, and hugged first her mother, then her father. "Merry Christmas!" Blake exclaimed. Then she really noticed her parents: the gleam in her father's eyes, the smile that had taken hold of her mother's entire face, the way Roger was now standing behind Holly with his arms wrapped around her waist. "Okay, what's going on?" she asked. "Was Santa really good to you guys or what?"

Holly looked over her shoulder at Roger, then looked back at Blake. "We have a very special Christmas present for you," she said.

"Ooh, is it a pony?" Blake asked in a smart-aleck voice. "A Jaguar convertible? Or did you get Ross and me half a time share in Palm Springs with you?"

Holly looked at Roger again. "She gets that from you," she said. Roger just laughed. "Your three guesses are all wrong," Holly said, turning back to look at Blake.

"Then what-" Blake's words abruptly died when Holly stepped forward, out of Roger's embrace, and held up her left hand. As soon as the ring registered with Blake, she screamed and launched herself at her mother, nearly knocking Holly off her feet. Roger managed to steady both women before they could hit the ground. Ross stood there still holding the pie, his jaw dropping as it sunk in that Holly and Roger were getting married.

"You're getting married? Really? To each other this time?" Blake asked when she finally stopped screaming.

"Your mother decided last night it's time, and I agreed," Roger confirmed. "And we're getting married in four days."

"Four days?" Blake asked.

"We don't see any reason to wait," Holly replied.

"But there's so much to do!" Blake exclaimed.

"Not that much," Holly replied. "We already know exactly what we want."

"Well, what can I do to help?" Blake asked. "Whatever you want, whatever you need, just name it."

"Would you be my matron of honor?" Holly asked.

Tears sprang to Blake's eyes then. The years of animosity between her and Holly had finally been laid to rest, but knowing that her mother wanted her to stand up with her when she finally remarried Roger made Blake's heart feel fuller regarding her mother than it had since her own wedding day. "Absolutely!" Blake exclaimed. "And Ross can be your best man, Dad!"

Roger and Ross both looked stunned that Blake would suggest this. "Ah..." Roger said.

Blake looked at Ross then, and as soon as he saw the look in her eyes, he was helpless to say no. Heaven help him if they ever had a daughter who inherited Blake's eyes. "I take it I'm invited, being the matron of honor's husband?" Ross asked.

"We're only having you and Blake," Holly replied.

Ross looked at Roger. "If you want me to do it, I will," he said. "But if you'd rather I didn't, I won't."

Now Blake turned those eyes on her father, and he was just as helpless to say no to them as Ross was. After catching Holly's "it's okay with me" look, Roger looked at Ross. With Hart who knew where and not wanting to have anything to do with Roger anyway, and Maureen being both female and not on the guest list, Roger said, "Why not?" He was as used to having Ross for a son-in-law as he was going to get. Ross was going to be there anyway, and at least this way, he'd know where to stand during the wedding.

"Dinner will be ready soon," Holly said then. "We can go over what we need to do for the wedding while we eat."

"Great!" Blake exclaimed. She took off her coat, handed it and her purse to Ross, then took the pie from him and followed Holly to the kitchen, where she set the pie on the counter and got the water pitcher out of the refrigerator to start filling the glasses.

Ross went and put his and Blake's coats and Blake's purse in Holly and Roger's guest room, then returned to the living room. He looked at Roger and said, "This should prove to you once and for all that there's nothing I won't do to make Blake happy. Just don't expect a bachelor party."

Roger smirked, but his retort went unspoken as Blake said, "Come on, Ross, Dad! We have a wedding to plan!"

Musing to himself that Christmas truly was the season for miracles, Ross joined his wife and his outlaw in-laws at the table for Christmas dinner with a side order of wedding planning for those same outlaw in-laws.


	3. Husband and Wife

_December 29, 1994, 3:03 PM—Holly and Roger's Wedding Day_

Roger looked at his watch, then tugged at his collar, knocking his silver bow tie askew as he did so. Luckily he had anticipated that he might be a bit keyed up and had gotten a clip-on tie instead of one that would need to be hand tied. "Holly!" he called. "Chrissy and Ross will be here any minute!" It was a few minutes after 3:00 PM, and they had a 4:00 PM appointment with the Justice of the Peace.

"I'm almost ready!" Holly called back. Roger checked his reflection in the mirror by the fireplace, straightened his tie, and then he began pacing.

It had been a very eventful three days, which was now culminating in Roger and Holly's wedding-or it would, as soon as Chrissy and Ross arrived and they drove to the Justice of the Peace. Roger stopped pacing mid-step and reached into his inside jacket pocket, removing the box containing his and Holly's wedding rings. He opened the box to make sure both white gold bands were inside it where they were supposed to be. He was startled when the doorbell rang, and he almost bobbled the ring box. He hurriedly closed the box and tucked it back into his jacket pocket, then called to Holly again. "Holly, they're here!"

"I'll be right out!" Holly called back.

Roger hurried to the front door and threw it open to reveal Blake and Ross standing there. Ross was in his tuxedo and black dress overcoat, and Blake's long black coat was open over a dress of navy blue satin. Ross was carrying two boxes, one large and one small.

"We ran into the florist in the driveway," Blake said. "You look very handsome, Dad. A little rumpled, but very handsome." Blake reached out, straightened Roger's tie, smoothed the matching vest, and said, "Where's Mom?"

Roger was buttoning his tuxedo jacket when he heard Holly say from behind him, "Right here."

He turned around, and Ross and Blake both followed his gaze to Holly. Roger swallowed hard at the sight of her. She had refused to let him see her dress until she was wearing it, and though Holly was always beautiful to him, Roger was struck speechless by how radiant and how becoming she looked right then. Her dress was satin, like Blake's, but that was where the similarities ended. Blake's dress was full length and in navy blue. Holly's dress was cocktail length and ivory with a v-neckline, an organza sash around her waist, and a matching jacket.

"Mom, you look so beautiful," Blake said softly.

Holly went to Roger as Ross juggled the flower boxes. Although Blake had just straightened Roger's tie, Holly reached out and straightened it again, though it no longer needed straightening. "You are the handsomest groom I've ever seen," she said.

Roger caught her hands as she took them from his tie. "You are a vision," he said reverently.

They just looked at each other, until Blake broke the mood and the moment by announcing, "Okay, we have the flowers here. Mom, can you pin on Dad's boutonniere, and I'll pin on Ross's?" Blake opened the box with the boutonnieres and held it out to Holly.

"Humor her," Holly said to Roger in an undertone.

As Blake made quick work of pinning on Ross's boutonniere, which matched Roger's, she explained, "All flowers have meanings. I knew all the different kinds of roses did, but I didn't know that all the other kinds of flowers did until we went to the florist. We had the same kinds of flowers put into the bouquets and the boutonnieres. The little blue flowers are forget-me-nots, which symbolize true love, and the white flowers are stephanotis, which symbolize happiness in marriage. And yes, I chose them for the obvious reasons. I admit, I liked the look of the amaryllis, until I found out they symbolize drama, because you guys have had way more than your share of that already, we can all agree. So forget-me-nots and stephanotis it is: true love and happiness in marriage, which is what I wish and hope for you." By the time she had finished her explanation, and Ross had once again buttoned his overcoat, Blake was already into the box with the small bouquets of flowers for herself and Holly.

Holly had just finished pinning on Roger's boutonniere when Blake dangled one of the bouquets at her. "Here's your bouquet, Mom," she said. She was grinning like the Cheshire cat. "Let's go get you guys married! The Justice of the Peace is waiting."

Roger held Holly's coat for her before she accepted her bouquet from Blake, then donned his own overcoat. "Whose car are we taking?" Holly asked as Roger and Ross stood back to let her and Blake exit the house first.

"I took care of the transportation," Blake said, gesturing to the black stretch limousine parked at the curb. "And a few other things for after the ceremony. I know," she said, holding up a hand to forestall any protests from either of her parents, "that this is technically an elopement, but this is still something for you, for all of us, to celebrate. Besides, Mom, I heard you telling Dad a minute ago to humor me about the flowers. Well, now I'm asking both of you to humor me about the limo and the rest. Ross has been humoring me for the last three days, because he's the best husband in the world." She paused to kiss Ross's cheek. "Now, shall we?" she asked.

On the ride to the Justice of the Peace, Blake asked, "So, where is this mysterious honeymoon destination?"

"It's a surprise for a reason, Christina Blake," Holly said, trying to sound stern but failing at it because she was too happy to be stern about anything.

"So you don't have any idea, Dad?" Blake asked.

"None," Roger said. He looked at Holly. "But wherever it is, it'll be perfect, because I'll be with your mother."

Blake grinned at Holly. "I've been waiting for this ever since you caught my bouquet last summer," she said. Then she grew serious. "Thank you for letting me be a part of this."

"Please, you would have killed us if we'd gotten married without you," Holly said. She and Blake traded knowing smirks then.

"We've come a long way," Blake replied. "All of us." She looked at Ross, then Roger, then Holly.

"Yes, we have," Ross agreed. He'd said very little because part of him felt this was all so surreal, but another part of him acknowledged that this was right for Roger and Holly. Even Ross had to admit that Roger had mellowed quite a bit since he and Holly had reconciled. Of course, Holly had also gotten more involved in Roger's various capers, but the bright side there was that while she now waded into the thick of things with him, she also managed to keep Roger on the right side of the law, for the most part. There **was **that incident with the Spauldings a few months earlier, though Alexandra and Alan had elected not to press charges in the end. The only person who truly could keep Roger in line was Holly. Ross mused to himself that Holly's job would either get a lot easier or a lot harder after today, but he remembered his conversation with her on his own wedding day, when she had asked him if he thought Roger was a lost cause or she wasn't up to the job of handling him. No matter what the challenge when it came to Roger, Ross knew, Holly was definitely up to it. The fact that Holly was finally marrying Roger proved that she didn't think he was a lost cause, and Ross had to admit that when it came to Holly and Blake, Roger might, and did, screw up sometimes, but his mistakes were considerably less catastrophic, and usually the opposite of illegal and criminal, as opposed to the things he did and the mistakes he made before reconciling with Holly. Besides, Ross loved seeing Blake so happy, and she was over the moon about her mother and father getting married to each other again at last. For her sake, Ross would do his best to accept this marriage.

When they arrived at the Justice of the Peace, Blake and Ross got out of the limo first. Holly held her bouquet in one hand and reached for Roger's hand with the other. "Are you ready?" she asked him as they stood outside the limousine for a moment.

"I've been waiting all my life for this moment," Roger replied seriously. He brought Holly's hand to his lips and kissed it. "I love you, Holly."

"I love you too," Holly replied, squeezing his hand and then leaning in for a kiss.

Before their lips touched, they heard Blake call out, "Hey, wedding first, then honeymoon!"

Roger reluctantly pulled back from Holly and gave her a wry smile. Holly replied, "Just remember, Ross is the one who gets to peel her off the ceiling at the end of the night."

"I'm glad she's so happy for us," Roger said as he and Holly, holding hands, followed Blake and Ross inside.

"I am too," Holly said.

When they got inside, the wife of the Justice of the Peace took their coats and scarves. Blake had her camera with her, and Ross snapped a couple of pictures of Blake and Holly together. Roger gave Ross the ring box while Holly moved her engagement ring back to her right hand for the duration of the ceremony. Blake and Holly went into the hall so they could walk in to the parlor, first Blake, then Holly, leaving Roger and Ross standing with the Justice of the Peace and his wife in the parlor, Ross still holding Blake's camera.

"Excuse me for a moment," Ross said to the others, and then he walked into the hall and went straight to Blake. Wordlessly he plucked the camera from her hand and then gave her the ring box.

"What's this for?" she asked.

Ross just smiled. "I know how much this means to you," he said. "That's why I think that you should have charge of these." He tapped the closed ring box with his index finger. "It would definitely mean more to Holly and Roger if you were the one who gave the rings to the Justice of the Peace when he asks for them. I'll still be a witness, but I'll just be a ceremonial best man."

Blake looked from the ring box in her hand to her husband, then leaned up and quickly kissed him.

"Shall I start the music?" the wife of the Justice of the Peace asked, sticking her head into the hall.

"As soon as I return to the front," Ross replied. He gave Blake and Holly one last smile, then hurried back to stand next to Roger. The wife of the Justice of the Peace put on a CD recording of Jeremiah Clarke's _Trumpet Voluntary._ (Holly had requested this as the processional because she liked it better than the traditional Lohengrin's _Wedding March_.) Blake quickly hugged her mother, then marched down the aisle and turned to watch, along with Roger and Ross, as Holly made her own walk down the aisle.

Once Holly and Roger locked eyes, all they could see was each other. When Holly reached Roger's side, she handed Blake her bouquet, linked her fingers with Roger's, and everyone and everything else, including Blake and Ross, faded away as they at last got married.

"Today we unite Roger Thorpe and Holly Lindsey as husband and wife," the Justice of the Peace began. "Roger and Holly, you have requested that I marry you. Do you both do this of your own desire and free will?"

"We do," Roger and Holly answered in unison.

"Witnesses, do you know of any reason why we may not legally continue with this wedding?"

"We do not," Blake and Ross answered in unison.

"Roger, will you have this woman to be your lawful wedded wife, to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, and forsaking all others, keep you only unto her, for so long as you both shall live?"

"I will," Roger replied, looking into Holly's eyes.

"Holly, will you have this man to be your lawful wedded husband, to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, and forsaking all others, keep you only unto him, for so long as you both shall live?"

"I will," Holly replied, smiling at Roger.

"Take hands and recite your wedding vows," the Justice of the Peace directed them.

Roger and Holly took hold of each other's hands and stood facing each other. Roger looked deeply into Holly's eyes as he recited his vows to her, imbuing each word with the solemn earnestness he was feeling in this moment, and with all the love he felt for her bursting through his veins.

"I, Roger, take you, Holly, to be my wife. I promise to love and care for you all of our days. I accept you with your faults and your strengths, even as I offer myself with my faults and my strengths. I promise to support you when you need support and to turn to you when I need support. I choose you as the one with whom I will spend my life."

Then it was Holly's turn. She held tightly to Roger's hands, and when she saw the sheen of moisture in his eyes, she felt her own eyes well up with tears, but her voice never wavered as she spoke her vows in a strong, clear voice. "I, Holly, take you, Roger, to be my husband. I promise to love and care for you all of our days. I accept you with your faults and your strengths, even as I offer myself with my faults and my strengths. I promise to support you when you need support and to turn to you when I need support. I choose you as the one with whom I will spend my life."

"Do you have rings that you wish to exchange?" the Justice of the Peace asked.

Roger started to turn to Ross for the rings, but Blake extended her arm and held up the open ring box in her parents' line of sight with a watery smile. Her tears had begun as soon as Roger had said "I will," and had continued on through her parents' vows. Roger and Holly looked at their daughter-until this moment, the one good thing they had ever done together-and as Roger smiled proudly at Blake, and a few tears glistened in Holly's eyes, the Justice of the Peace reached out and plucked the rings from the box with a nod of acknowledgment to Blake.

The Justice of the Peace held up Holly's ring and said, "Roger, will you give your ring to Holly and repeat these words: With this ring, I thee wed."

Now Roger's fingers trembled slightly as he took the ring, then took Holly's left hand in his and slid the ring onto her finger as he said, "With this ring, I thee wed."

The Justice of the Peace gave Holly Roger's ring and said, "Holly, will you give your ring to Roger and repeat these words: With this ring, I thee wed."

Holly placed the ring on Roger's finger and said, "With this ring, I thee wed."

"For as much as you have made your vows, each to the other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving your rings, by the power vested in me, I now pronounce that you are husband and wife," the Justice of the Peace said. "You may kiss the bride."

Holly beamed as she framed Roger's face in her hands. Roger looked at Holly in amazement for a long moment, his arms around her waist, as it fully registered in his brain that she was indeed his bride, and then they leaned in toward each other and kissed soundly. Blake looked from her parents to Ross, grinning and crying at the same time. Ross just smiled back at Blake. Finally Roger and Holly stopped kissing and drew back to look at each other. "Hello, husband," Holly said softly, reaching up to catch a tear at the corner of his eye.

Roger touched his forehead to Holly's as he said, "Hello, wife."

They spent the next few minutes signing the marriage license, which Blake and Ross then signed as the witnesses. Then Blake insisted on pictures, and snapped several shots of Roger and Holly together before asking the wife of the Justice of the Peace to take a few pictures of her and her parents together, and then Ross walked into the frame. At Roger's look of surprise, Ross said, "It's a family photo, right?"

"Right," Blake said. She and Ross even posed for a couple of pictures, just the two of them.

When at last they headed out into the cold December night, Roger was holding tightly to Holly's hand. Before they stepped outside, he looked down at his new wedding ring, flexing his fingers and feeling the weight of the ring. Holly, holding his right hand, squeezed it, and he felt the cool metal of her rings against his palm. "It isn't a dream, I promise," she told him.

"But it is," Roger replied. "It's my longest held dream come true."

"Our day has come," Holly said.

Roger grinned, remembering when he had told Holly about the song that had served as his incantation about her, about them. "It has," Roger replied. "And now that I, now that **we**, finally have everything, I'm holding on with both hands."

"How about holding onto me with both hands?" Holly asked, sliding her arms around his neck. He bent his head and kissed her.

Blake leaned out of the limo and called, "I really do hate to interrupt, but we have someplace to be." Roger and Holly stopped kissing and looked at her. "You're humoring me, remember?" she asked with a smile before disappearing into the limo again.

Roger and Holly looked at each other and said in unison, "That's your daughter." Then, laughing happily, they hurried to the limo, got in, and, when they settled themselves across from Blake and Ross, Blake told the driver to head to The Towers Club.


	4. Here's to the Bride and Groom

_December 29, 1994, 5:26 PM—The Towers Club, Springfield_

By the time they arrived at the Towers Club, it was almost 5:30, and darkness had fallen. The Christmas decorations and the overhead lights inside Towers had nothing on Roger and Holly, Blake thought as her parents exited the elevator arm in arm ahead of her and Ross. Since leaving the Justice of the Peace's house, the newlyweds had been practically radiating light. Blake had never seen her parents this happy. Oh, there had been a happiness about them since they had formally gotten back together in February, but this was happiness on a whole new plane…happiness to the millionth power. Blake had always wished for this, but had despaired of it ever happening, figuring that her parents were too dysfunctional to get it together, even though deep down she had always wanted them to be together, and she had always known that Roger had always wanted to be with Holly, ever since they had all returned to Springfield years ago. Then Blake had fallen in love with Ross and he had fallen in love with her…which, of course, couldn't be simple because Ross was one of Holly's exes, which had created a whole set of problems and difficulties of its own between Blake and Holly, and kayoed Ross and Holly's friendship for a good while there, and then there was the fact that Ross also went way back with Roger and they had always hated each other.

But somehow they had gotten through it all. The years of hurt and pain, of helping and healing, that the four of them had gone through had gotten them all to this place. As little as a year-and-a-half ago, Blake had never thought she and Ross would be both happily married to each other **and** on good speaking terms with both of her parents, much less that her parents would be deeply in love and happily married to each other. Yet here they all were, in exactly this state. It was enough to make Blake believe in miracles.

When they were shown to their table, Blake told their waiter before they had even sat down, "A bottle of your best champagne, please, right away." The waiter nodded and hurried off to fetch the champagne and glasses as Roger held Holly's chair for her and Ross held Blake's chair for her. As they settled themselves at the table, Blake said, "Order whatever you want tonight, Mom and Dad. It's on us." When both Holly and Roger opened their mouths to supposedly object, Blake hurriedly added, "You're humoring me, remember? Look, if all you want is champagne, that's fine by me, but whether it's champagne only or a full dinner with or without dessert, you're going to have to put up with me and Ross a little longer." Then something occurred to Blake. "Unless you have to leave right away for this mysterious honeymoon destination." Blake and Roger both looked at Holly interestedly.

"We have time for dinner," Holly replied. She looked at Roger, her eyes dancing, but she scolded him nevertheless: "You know, I expect it from Blake, but just this once, could you let a surprise be a surprise?"

Roger beamed. "Yes, dear," he said, pretending to look intently at his menu.

Holly rolled her eyes. "It's in driving distance," she said. "And that is the only hint you, and you," she added, looking from Roger to Blake, "are getting from me."

"Are you sure you'll be okay to drive tonight?" Blake asked.

Holly looked at her watch. "It's 5:30," she said. "It's not far. I want to be on the road by eight, though."

The waiter returned with the champagne then, and Blake was so determined to get her parents on their way by Holly's appointed time of 8:00 that she insisted they order dinner right away, so they did. Holly went with the trout amandine, Roger ordered the surf and turf, Ross got a steak well-done, and Blake opted for the pasta primavera. After the waiter left to take their orders to the kitchen, Blake poured four glasses of champagne, and once everyone had a glass of champagne in hand, she said, "I would like to propose a toast." Lifting her glass, she said, "To my mother and father, the newlyweds. I am so very happy for you, and I love you both very much. My only hope and wish for you is happiness and love, tonight and for the rest of your lives." She raised her glass higher. "To Mr. and Mrs. Roger Thorpe and Holly Lindsey."

As the others raised their glasses, Holly corrected Blake, "Lindsey-Thorpe."

"What?" Blake asked, thinking she hadn't heard her mother right.

"Holly Lindsey-Thorpe," Holly replied. "Since I'm known in the news industry by 'Lindsey,' I decided to hyphenate and use both names."

Blake was floored. She hadn't noticed that on the marriage license, but then she hadn't looked at anything but the line the Justice of the Peace had told her to sign. "Really?" she asked.

Holly nodded. "Really." She looked at Roger for a moment, lacing her fingers with his and squeezing his hand before looking back at Blake. "It just feels right. Besides, it'll look great on the _Journal_'s masthead, don't you think?" she asked with a smile.

Blake grinned at her mother. "It really will, Mom," she said. She snuck a look at her father then, and saw in his eyes as he gazed at her mother that Holly's decision to take his name meant even more to him than it did to Blake.

"Far be it from me to ruin this lovely family moment," Ross piped up then, "but my arm is getting tired, and I think I see our waiter loading our dinners onto his tray, so Blake, honey, if you could finish the toast?"

It was only then that Blake noticed that all of them, including her, still had their glasses raised aloft. "Oh! Right!" she exclaimed. Looking at her parents once more, she beamed at them as she said, "To Mr. and Mrs. Roger Thorpe and Holly Lindsey-Thorpe…Mom and Dad…love and happiness, tonight and the rest of your lives. Cheers."

They all clinked glasses, Blake and Ross each took a sip of champagne, and Roger and Holly looked at each other and then linked arms before they each took a sip. The waiter then arrived with their dinners, and they had barely begun eating when Maureen Bauer saw them as she was leaving. She decided to go over to their table and say hello. "Hello, Ross, Blake, Roger, Holly," she greeted them as she came to a stop beside their table. "Getting an early jump on New Year's Eve?"

"We are celebrating," Blake said, "but it's not an early New Year's Eve. What are you doing here, Maureen? Is Ed here? Michelle?"

"No, just me. I've been here for almost four hours," Maureen sighed. "An interminable lunch meeting with some of the hospital's donors. We're planning on overhauling the cardiac wing at Cedars in the New Year. I was the only one in administration who didn't go out of town for the holidays, so I got stuck with the meeting. I'm heading home to Ed and Michelle now, but I saw you all here and wanted to say hello. If you don't mind my asking, what are you celebrating, if it's not an early New Year's Eve?"

Roger smiled at his old friend. "Holly and I got married this afternoon," he said. "And Chrissy insisted that we let her and Ross take us out to dinner afterwards."

"Congratulations!" Maureen exclaimed with a warm smile. "I'm very happy for you both. And Michelle will be thrilled. She's been rooting for the two of you since the 4th of July at Cliff House last year."

"Tell Michelle we said hello and Happy New Year," Holly replied.

"I will," Maureen promised. "Congratulations again. I've really got to get home. Good night."

They said their goodnights to Maureen, who waved at them from the elevator before the doors closed, finished their dinners, skipping dessert, and then headed to the waiting limo and back to Holly and Roger's house. Before Holly and Roger got out of the car, Blake said, "I won't ask where you are, but will you call me when you get there so I know you made it there safely?"

"We will," Holly promised. She leaned forward in her seat to give Blake a hug. "Thank you for all your help. We couldn't have pulled this together so quickly without you." She released Blake, then looked over at Ross. "And thank you for…well…you know."

"We're family," Ross replied. "Besides, you were there when I got married." Holly remembered her conversation with Ross on his and Blake's wedding day as she and Ross exchanged a look then, and she reflected that the four of them—she, Roger, Blake, and Ross—had indeed managed to become a family, despite everything that had happened between and among them all in the past, which was a miracle all its own.

"Are you kidding? I was thrilled to do it," Blake replied. After Holly had released Blake, Roger had opened his arms, and Blake moved to hug him. "I'm so happy for you and Mom, Daddy," she said softly so only he could hear.

"I am too, and I'm not going to do anything to blow it this time, I swear," Roger vowed. "I love you, Chrissy."

"I love you too," Blake replied, releasing her father with a squeeze to his shoulder.

"Congratulations," Ross said as Holly and Roger exited the car. "We'll see you next year."

"That's right, we won't see you again 'til next year," Blake realized. "Happy New Year."

"Happy New Year," Holly and Roger replied in unison.

"Have a good time," Blake said. "Call me when you get there. I'll see you when you get back. Good night."

Roger and Holly stood in the driveway and watched the limo depart to take Blake and Ross home. After they were gone, Holly turned to head for the house, but Roger swept her up in his arms. She smiled as she put her arms around his neck. "How long will it take us to pack?" he asked as he carried her to the front door.

"We're already packed," she replied. "Our bags are waiting there for us, in fact. So actually, we don't have to go inside. We can just get in the car and take off."

Roger grinned. "Now I'm even more intrigued than I already was," he said. He then carried Holly to the garage.

She beamed back at him. "You do realize you have to put me down so I can drive?" she inquired.

Roger gently set her on her feet by the driver's side door of her car. "Yes," he replied, "but after we arrive at this mysterious destination, be prepared to spend the entire honeymoon in or within reaching distance of my arms."

"There's nothing I want more," Holly replied, cupping Roger's cheek in her palm and leaning in to kiss him gently, quickly, before withdrawing her keys from her bag. And with that, they were in the car and on their way to their honeymoon.

**So, anybody have any guesses as to where Holly is taking Roger for their honeymoon? The destination, and the reason for it, will be revealed in the next part. **


	5. The Honeymoon Begins

**Did you figure out where Holly and Roger are spending their honeymoon? I have to confess, this was one of my favorite parts of the story to write. I hope I did it justice.**

_December 29, 1994, 9:10 PM, Holly and Roger's honeymoon destination—Cliff House_

As Holly stopped the car, Roger looked around. In the winter darkness, surrounded by snow and ice, Roger honestly had no idea where they were. He had ruled out the Bauer cabin (true, he was good friends with Maureen, and had managed to peacefully coexist with Ed for Maureen's, Michelle's, and most importantly, Holly's and Blake's sakes, but he knew Holly would never ask Ed and Maureen to borrow the cabin for their honeymoon), and he figured they weren't going to a bed and a breakfast because wherever they were, the house in front of them didn't look big enough for a bed and breakfast. He looked at Holly as she unfastened her seat belt and turned off the headlights, leaving the car idling and the pale light from the glowing dashboard the only illumination. "We're here," she announced. When Maureen had mentioned this place back at Towers, Holly had worked very hard to carefully school her features so as not to give anything away to Roger…or, for that matter, to Blake. When she looked at Roger now in the dim light of the car's interior, she could see that he had no idea where they were, so she had managed to keep the surprise a surprise after all, much to her relief.

She turned off the heat and the ignition and got out of the car, Roger quickly following behind her. When they got to the front door, as Holly unlocked it, Roger asked, "Am I allowed to ask now where we are? I mean, so you'll tell me?"

Holly swung the front door wide, found the light switch and turned it on, and entered, Roger at her heels. "Take a look," she replied, anxious to see if he would recognize the place, whose décor was slightly different than the last time they'd been there over a year-and-a-half ago, as she hurriedly shut and locked the door, then took off her coat, watching Roger all the while.

Roger, still in his dress overcoat, walked into the middle of the room and looked around. Some of the furniture and the overall décor was different, but he would remember this place for the rest of his life. Holly had brought him to Cliff House, where they had spent a dangerous 4th of July with Michelle and Ed Bauer, and John Davis and his loaded gun, a year-and-a-half before. And after Michelle and Ed had returned home to call Maureen, who had been visiting her mother Bea and brother and sister-in-law Tony and Annabelle and their family in Boston while she and Ed were separated over his affair with Lillian Raines, leaving Roger and Holly alone together at Cliff House that night and the next morning… What had happened between them then remained both one of Roger's happiest memories, and one of his deepest hurts.

He turned around and looked at Holly. "Cliff House," he said. "You brought me back to Cliff House."

"I did," Holly replied, gesturing that he should take off his overcoat so she could put it with hers in the hall closet. Once their coats were hanging in the closet, Holly returned to stand before Roger in the center of the main room. "There's a reason I brought you here for our honeymoon." She bit her lip, suddenly nervous. Now that they were here, she was a little worried that Roger wouldn't see it the same way she did.

Seeing her nervousness, Roger reached for Holly's hands. Holding them in both of his, he said, "I'm not upset, Holly. Granted, the last time we were here…" He trailed off, not wanting to bring up such a painful memory on their long-awaited wedding night, and unsure of how to proceed.

Holly nodded. "That's it exactly, Roger. The last time we were here." Roger looked at her quizzically, wondering exactly what she was getting at.

Holly took a deep breath, holding Roger's gaze as she began, "When we were here last year, you asked something of me that I wasn't ready to give you. You were making promises to me that I wasn't ready to accept from you. And I know that my reaction to you that day hurt you deeply."

"It did," Roger conceded, since she had brought it up. "But we're past that now. Past the hurt, I mean, not past the promises, because I meant what I said then, Holly, and I mean it even more now. Even though I didn't say it in those exact words again today, it was implied. You know that, right?"

"Yes," Holly replied. She reached up to stroke his cheek. "But I need you to know, Roger, that I mean it too. That I'm finally ready. Last year when we were here, you wanted all of me. I couldn't give that to you then, but I can now, and I am.

"We got married today. But this marriage is more than rings and a piece of paper." Roger looked into Holly's eyes, into the intensity of her gaze and the way it never wavered from his own, as Holly led him to the couch. Once they were seated, she continued speaking. "You said to me that night that the rest of your life was no great prize, but that it was mine, and that you'd always known that. I just…" She paused, her eyes steadily fixed on his as she gathered her thoughts.

"When you were shot and I was taking care of you, at home and then out at the farm, and then after I bailed you out of jail and you moved in with me to stay, I got my first really clear look at us, away from the madding crowd. Do you remember when I told you that when you were missing after you were shot, and everyone thought you were dead, how all the supposedly good citizens of Springfield turned into the villagers ready to stone Frankenstein's monster?"

Roger nodded, so Holly continued. "That was when I started to realize it, but it was after we were together again, after you were out of jail and Billy Lewis was sentenced for shooting you, and things began to calm down, that it really hit me." She released his hands to frame his face then. "I love you, Roger, and I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks, because I know that this is real, and that it's right. I know that we work. So who cares what anyone else thinks? I get to see a side of you that no one else sees. Oh, Blake sees it in a way, and so do Peter and Michelle and Maureen, but it's different with them than it is with me. I get what I know is the real you. And you get what you know, what you've always known, is the real me. And I can finally **be** the real me with you. All my life, I've tried to fit in with those supposedly good people, and I could never be myself with any of them. And I never fit in with them, either. And somehow, all along, you knew that. You never actually said it quite that way, but you knew it. I had to figure it out for myself, and I finally did. And in all that time, you never gave up on me. Even when I hurt you, even when I pushed you away, you kept coming back."

"That's because you're in my blood, Holly," Roger replied. "You're in a place so deep inside of me that nothing and no one is ever going to get there again. You've always been there, and you always will be there. I would have waited forever for you if I'd had to."

"But you don't," Holly said. "Bringing you here tonight…rambling on the way I am… That's what I'm trying to say, Roger. It's what I want you to know with absolute certainty, beyond all doubt, the way I know it." She took his hands in hers again. "It started when we were in Acapulco, and we were finally able to put the past behind us. Then you saved me from Daniel St. John…and then you saved me from myself on the worst birthday of my life, after I had that horrible fight with Blake. You came to me to talk about your difficulties with Hart, you saved me from John Davis here, and then one year ago, I got to help save you after you were shot."

"You **did **save me after I was shot," Roger replied. "Eve Guthrie may have removed the bullet, but I fought to live for you."

"When we left the farm before the police showed up after Eve tipped them off, when we were hiding in the woods right before we got caught, do you remember what I said to you when you tried to get me to leave you alone and go back to town and turn you in?" Holly asked.

"Yes," Roger said. "You said that you didn't need an out and that you didn't want one."

"That's right," Holly replied. "When we finally got to go home after all of that mess at the police station, that was when I knew that we finally had a real chance. And the longer we were together, the more I saw that we **do** work. We've learned how to have a real relationship where we put each other first, which we didn't do when we were younger. When you asked me to marry you again the week after Ross and Blake's wedding, I didn't panic inside, even a little bit. Like we discussed on Christmas Eve when I told you I wanted to get married, you didn't push me when you gave me the ring."

"I knew if I did that, I'd lose you again, and I didn't want that to happen…not then, not ever, Holly," Roger replied firmly.

Holly said, "When it got to be six months later and you hadn't pushed me to get married…you **wouldn't** push me to get married… I knew with absolute certainty, beyond all doubt. You've changed, Roger. So have I. We've grown…individually, and together. That's when I knew I was ready for this, ready for all of it. " Roger looked at Holly in wonder, and she knew that she was getting through to him, that he was understanding what she was saying, to her immense relief and joy. "We've both been around the block a few times," she added. "So we know now that there's no coasting in a good relationship, nor should there be in a good marriage—"

Roger interrupted Holly to cross his heart and then raise his right hand. "Never will I coast," he vowed solemnly.

"Nor will I," Holly replied just as solemnly. They looked at each other in wonder for the space of a few heartbeats, then Holly continued. "Blake said something at the restaurant tonight when she toasted us that has stayed with me. She said that she wishes us love and happiness tonight and for the rest of our lives."

Holly reached up to brush the back of her hand across Roger's cheek before letting her hand drop to rest on his shoulder. Gazing deeply into his shining eyes, she went on, "That's how long this marriage is going to last, Roger: tonight and for the rest of our lives. I am yours, completely and forever. And I brought you here…I wanted us to spend our honeymoon here…because I wanted this to be the first place that we are together as husband and wife."

She released Roger's hand then to encircle him with her arms as she pulled him forward and kissed him soundly. He kissed her back just as soundly, sliding his arms around her waist and pulling her into his lap, holding her tightly as they kissed until the need for oxygen forced them to stop. Holly pulled back and took a deep breath as she slid her hands forward to unclip Roger's tie, which she tucked into the breast pocket of his tuxedo jacket, and unbutton his collar button. He met her gaze again as he fought to bring his own heavy breathing under control. "When we made love here a year-and-a-half ago, I gave you everything but my heart. And you have it now, I know you know that. But I wanted this to be where we first make love as husband and wife. And this time, you'll get all of me, most importantly, my heart," she promised softly as she traced his jaw with her fingertips.

Roger framed her face in his hands, tucking her hair behind her ears. "Holly," he breathed in wonder. The true meaning of her words, and of the look in her eyes, rolled through him like a tidal wave, and he pulled her into his arms again, holding tightly to her as he met her lips with his own in a long, slow, deep kiss, his tongue seeking and finding hers. When he broke the kiss, he looked at her, her eyes wide and sparkling with her love for him, her lips slightly swollen from his kisses, her breathing as heavy as his own. Overcome with emotion, he touched his forehead to hers.

"Let's go to bed. I want to make love with my husband," Holly replied, her breath hot on Roger's face. She stood up and held out her hand. When Roger took it, she pulled him to his feet, and she kept her hold on his hand as they headed upstairs to the bedroom.

When Holly had been there two days earlier to get the place ready, she had set several candles around the bedroom. When they entered the bedroom, as Holly let go of Roger's hand to move around the room and light the candles, Roger hung back and took in the scene: the candles all around, the thick red down comforter on the bed, turned down just enough to reveal the red plaid flannel sheets and pillowcases, and his and Holly's suitcases parked side by side in front of the bench at the foot of the bed, and in the middle of it all, Holly. Roger just stood there watching her, amazed; amazed that he was here with her again, amazed that she was his wife again, and just plain amazed at her. He made a vow to himself then and there that he would never do anything to risk losing her ever again. She was so much more than he deserved—she always had been—but by some miracle, they were finally here, finally on the same page, finally married again, and he knew that he never wanted to take another breath without her by his side, as his wife.

Holly lit the last candle and shook out the match, dropping it to the bedside table before turning and walking to Roger, still standing by their suitcases and the bench at the foot of the bed, just watching her, the way the candlelight burnished her auburn hair and made her dress of ivory satin shimmer. She stopped in front of him and removed her jacket, dropping it to the bench at the foot of the bed. They stood there for a moment looking at each other in the candlelight before leaning in to meet in an ardent kiss. He let his hands rest at her sides as they kissed, and felt her fingers working, first unbuttoning and then pushing his tuxedo jacket off his shoulders, then moving down his torso, stopping when she reached the buttons of his vest. He trailed kisses across her cheek to the side of her neck as she removed his vest and let it fall to the floor at their feet, and then she went to work on his shirt. After removing and tossing his shirt aside, she turned her back to Roger and asked, "Would you unzip me?"

It was a short zipper, not even reaching the middle of her back; Holly had zipped it up herself earlier in the day. Roger eased the zipper down its short track, brushing his fingertips beneath the fabric and across her shoulders, dipping his head to kiss the nape of her neck and inhale her scent.

She turned back into his arms, and he pushed the dress off her shoulders, letting it pool at her feet. She stepped out of it, then bent to remove her shoes before backing towards the bed. He stepped out of his own shoes before grasping the hand she extended to him, letting her lead him to the bed, watching as her eyes roved over him lovingly

Holly let her eyes roam over Roger, taking in the small scar on his chest left by the removal of the bullet that brought him literally falling at her feet one year ago, the candlelight glinting off his wedding ring, and the reverent adoration he so obviously felt for her shining in his eyes. This night would be vastly different than the last one they had spent here. Tonight, no regret would overrule her heart, no war would rage inside her, and no confusion would devour her soul; his face would not twist with the pain of a crippling emotional blow, and he would not start down a path of self-annihilation that would nearly destroy him. Tonight, only their love, and the life they were finally ready to live together, existed, and that love and that life would be celebrated.

They stopped beside the bed as he toyed with one of the shoulder straps of her slip, nudging it aside to kiss the curve of her shoulder, then removing it altogether. When he lifted his head from that task, their eyes locked again for the space of a heartbeat, and then her hands were on his face as she pulled him to her and kissed him deeply. He wrapped his arms around her, his fingers tracing up her spine, and she propelled them downward onto the bed without breaking the kiss until after they had rolled together to the far side of the bed. Then Holly sat up and reached for the button on his pants.

He lifted his hips to help her finish undressing him, closing his eyes as she trailed her fingertips ever so lightly down his thigh as she drew his pants and boxers off before she peeled off his socks. She made her way back up the bed to him and trailed open-mouthed kisses across his chest and collarbones, and he opened his eyes, then gently rolled her under him so he could return the favor, lingering at the hammering pulse point in her throat as she tangled her fingers in his hair, pressing him closer to her. His fingers trailed down her body to divest her of her remaining clothing, and he savored the fact that she did not stop touching him as he finished undressing her, her palm rubbing slowly up and down his back the whole time.

When they were completely bared to each other, she pulled him into her arms, held him there poised above her, and met his eyes once more. She could see the maelstrom of emotions colliding in his eyes and knew her own eyes were a perfect mirror of his, the love, desire, and joy mingling together. She touched his face, and as he lowered his head to her waiting lips, the maelstrom consumed them as they merged in a tidal wave of emotional and tactile sensation, driving each other ever closer to the peak as they moved together, their bodies both expressing their mutual love and creating more of the mutual need coursing through them. They rode the surging tidal wave together until Holly flew over the edge with an exultant cry.

Roger immediately followed her over the edge, screaming her name in rapture as he collapsed in her arms.

_December 30, 1994, 12:24 AM—Cliff House_

They nestled beneath the covers, holding on to each other as their breathing and heart rates slowly returned to normal. Holly turned so she was lying on her side, pressed against Roger's side, and tangled her legs with his as she rested her cheek on his shoulder and her hand over his heart, feeling its strong, steady beat beneath her fingertips. Roger lay on his back, holding her tightly, and nuzzled her temple. He lightly rested his chin on the crown of her head and said, "I dreamed of this so many times, and the reality far surpasses every fantasy I've ever had." She pulled her head back enough to look at him, and he took her left hand in his left hand. She followed his gaze down to their joined hands, his on top, his wedding ring clearly visible despite the dimness of the room, as he said, "I'm your husband." He then turned their hands over so hers was on top, and her engagement and wedding rings shone in the candlelit shadows. Roger lowered his head to kiss Holly's rings, then said in wonder, "You're my wife." He looked at her again happily. "I can finally say that now: 'This is my wife, Holly.' 'Have you met Holly, my wife?' 'Oh, hold on a second, let me ask my wife. Holly, what do you think?'" His eyes gleamed at the mere thought. When he noticed Holly looking at him with fond amusement, he smiled sheepishly and ducked his head.

She lifted his chin so he had to look at her and said, "I think it's sweet. And Blake will…" She trailed off as a look of horror came to her face. "Oh my god, we forgot to call Blake!" she exclaimed. "What time is it?"

Roger squinted at his watch, then replied, "Ten minutes to one." He set the watch on the nightstand on his side of the bed as Holly sat up and reached for the phone on the nightstand on hers. "She'll understand," Roger said, rubbing Holly's shoulder in an effort to soothe her. "It's our wedding night."

Holly looked up from punching in Blake and Ross's home number and asked Roger, "You have **met **Blake, right? She's probably calling out the National Guard as we speak." She put the receiver to her ear.

Blake snatched up the phone before the first ring was complete. "Hello? Mom? Dad?" she demanded breathlessly.

"Yes," Holly said.

"Finally!" Blake exclaimed. "I've been driving Ross crazy since we got home…almost seven hours ago! I was worried you were lying in a ditch somewhere! You said this mysterious honeymoon destination of yours was within driving distance. You didn't mention that it required you to cross state lines!"

Blake was speaking so loudly that Roger could hear every word she said. He could also see that Holly was debating with herself whether or not to lie to their daughter. Holly decided to tell the truth. "It didn't," she admitted.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Blake said, extensively drawing out the lone syllable, her worry and anxiety instantly replaced by not only relief at knowing that her parents were safely on their honeymoon, but also by glee at knowing that she now had something to needle her mother about. "Well, I won't keep you, since you and Dad are obviously in the throes of passion right now. Thanks for coming up for air long enough to finally call me, though."

Holly heard Ross groaning, "Blake, really! I don't want to hear that! As far as I'm concerned, Holly and Roger have no sex life."

"If my parents have no sex life, then how did I get here?" Blake asked cheekily.

Holly couldn't completely stifle her snicker at that. Blake missed it, though, as Ross again complained that he did not want or need the image of his in-laws like that. "We're sorry we worried you," Holly said.

"It's all right, Mom," Blake assured her, no longer anxious, needling, or cheeky. "Go. Honeymoon. Give Dad my love and I'll see you when you get back. And Mom…I love you too. Good night."

"Good night, honey. Love you," Holly said. Blake hung up so Holly did too and then replaced the phone on her nightstand before turning back to Roger.

"What was that snicker about a minute ago?" Roger asked.

"Just Blake getting in one last dig, albeit at our expense, before Ross finally peels her off the ceiling," Holly replied. "She sends her love." Roger reached for her again and pulled her into his arms. "Ah, yes, now that Blake knows we're not lying in a ditch somewhere—her words—we can continue with the 'I stay in your arms, or within reaching distance of them, at all times for the duration of the honeymoon' proviso," she said as she settled into his embrace.

Roger sighed contentedly and brushed a kiss to her temple. "Honeymooning here was a wonderful surprise, Holly," he said.

"I have a few more surprises up my sleeve," she replied. "Starting with this one…" She moved just enough that she was lying half atop him so she could reach his face and she rained soft, gentle kisses from his forehead to his eyelids to his nose, cheeks, and chin before kissing his lips. He surrendered to her kisses and they lay there kissing until the pull of sleep could no longer be ignored, at which point Holly settled herself against Roger's side again, her cheek on his chest, her arm stretched across his stomach and drowsily murmured, "Good night."

It was mere seconds before Roger knew by Holly's deep, even breathing that she was asleep. He wrapped his arms around her, rested his head against hers, and just before sleep claimed him, he whispered, "Thank you for marrying me."

**There's a lot more to come, but it'll be a few days, so stay tuned!**


	6. Looking to the Future

_December 30, 1994, 10:20 AM—Cliff House_

Holly slowly stirred and came awake in Roger's arms. The weak winter sunlight shone behind the drawn blinds. Holly looked at Roger, placid and totally relaxed in sleep.

Memories of the night before played in her mind. The old adage about marriage changing things was certainly true. Holly felt a deeper connection to Roger, in a different way than ever before. She couldn't put it into words, but she knew that it was there, and she liked the way it felt. They had worked very hard to build trust in one another, and to do nothing to break that trust in any way. Holly had known since Roger had come to her with a bullet in him that he trusted her more than anyone else, with the possible exception of Blake, whom he trusted differently from the way he trusted Holly. In the past year, she and Roger had finally learned to put each other and their relationship first, and Holly had finally let her heart rule instead of her head, knowing that she had been right to believe that Roger had paid for his past and that he, that both of them, were capable of being together and actually being happy. This marriage was the culmination of what had begun in earnest when Roger, weak and wounded after being missing for weeks, had fallen unconscious at her feet a little over a year ago. She knew it would be not be perfect, because she and Roger were both far from perfect, but she also knew that they finally had what it took to make their marriage work this time, and that their promise to one another the night before never to coast would be kept, no matter what came their way in the future.

Roger began to stir then, bringing Holly back to the present. She moved closer, kissing her way down his jaw before dropping a kiss on his lips and pulling back to rest her palms flat on his chest and rest her chin on her hands as he blinked, opened his eyes, and looked at her. "Good morning," she said softly with a smile.

"Nope," Roger disagreed, smiling back at her as he passed a hand through her sleep-tousled hair. "Best morning of my life." Before either of them could say anything else, Roger's stomach rumbled. Roger watched as Holly rolled away from him to get out of bed. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"I'm famished too," she replied as she got her gray satin robe out of her suitcase and put it on. "I'm going downstairs and start breakfast. Why don't you take a quick shower?"

"Can I talk you into joining me? The whole 'within reaching distance of my arms at all times' proviso?" he asked with a mischievous smirk.

"I have to make this one exception for the proviso because I would rather we not pass out from hunger," Holly replied. She gave him a smirk of her own. "We're going to need our energy, and lots of it, for later. So, you shower, and I'll make breakfast."

Roger watched her go, then got out of bed and carried his suitcase into the bathroom. After a shower and shave, he dressed in the black pullover sweater, black Dockers and black loafers Holly had packed for him and went downstairs to find her scooping an omelet onto a plate. She looked over her shoulder at him with a smile and said, "Perfect timing." Coffee, juice, and toast were already on the small table, so Roger seated himself as Holly carried two plates over and set one omelet in front of Roger before settling down with the other omelet across from him.

They ate in silence for a few minutes until the edge was taken off their hunger. Then Roger set aside his fork and reached for Holly's hand after she replaced her juice glass on the table. "It feels different," he said. "Us, I mean."

"It does," Holly agreed, squeezing his hand, then continuing to hold it. "Good different."

"The best different," Roger said. He focused his gaze on her. "I've always felt connected to you, Holly. Even when we were thousands of miles apart, even in all the years you believed I was dead, I still felt connected to you. But it's different now. It's deeper now. It's more…profound somehow. I think it must be…" He trailed off.

"Must be what?" Holly asked, pushing her plate aside and concentrating her full attention on him.

"Ever since we got back together, I've known that you were all in. I was too," Roger began. "But at the beginning, I felt that you were holding something back, some part of you that I can only surmise was an exercise in self-preservation, in case we imploded again. You know, like when I first moved in with you, but we weren't sure if I'd be going to jail or not, and you didn't want to get too close too fast because you said if I got taken away again, that would make it harder than it already was.

"As time went on, I felt you holding back less and less. I swore to myself that I wouldn't keep anything from you this time, that I would not blow this miraculous chance you gave me, gave us. And the longer we were together, the more I noticed that the part of you that you were holding back was getting smaller.

"Last night, you told me that you're mine completely and forever. And I feel the difference. The walls are all gone, and you love me like you've never loved me before—without any reservations, and without holding back at all."

Holly released Roger's hand, pushed back her chair and went to sit in Roger's lap. She put her arms around his neck as he wrapped his arms around her waist. "You're right," she replied. "It **was** self-preservation on my part that made me hold back that last little piece of myself. When I made my decision and chose you, I didn't go into it consciously waiting for things to fall apart."

"I know," Roger hastened to assure her.

Holly gave him a wry smile. "But, you can understand **why** I had that self-preservation instinct, given our history," she continued.

"Completely," Roger replied.

"I didn't have much of a defense mechanism left against you when we started over, because I didn't need it, not anymore," Holly went on. She caressed his face as she continued, "Last night, when I told you that I am yours completely and forever, that's what I was really trying to say: that walls have no place in our relationship anymore, because they separate us and keep things out, and that's not what we're about now." She dropped her hand to the back of his neck. "I wanted you to know that **I** know that I want you, Roger. I want to be married to you. And there will be no more regrets or doubts and no more second-guessing myself and no holding back even one last tiny piece of myself. Because this, us, this marriage…this is everything, and I'm putting everything into it. I- "

Roger cut Holly off when he crushed his mouth to hers, fervently expressing with his kiss what mere words couldn't begin to tell her. She responded in kind, inviting his tongue to dance with hers, an invitation he eagerly accepted. When he ran out of breath, he pulled back slowly, eyes still closed, touching his forehead to hers for a moment. "You are everything," he said hoarsely. "You always were. But for so long, I didn't know how to make you want me, make you need me, like I wanted and needed you." He opened his eyes to find her looking at him tenderly.

"You just had to be yourself," Holly said softly. "That's a lesson I had to learn too: I just had to be the real me, listen to my own heart, and stop trying to follow the madding crowd."

"I get that now," Roger replied, his hands sliding down to untie the belt of her robe, his eyes never leaving hers. "I know it. And I swear to you, Holly, I'll never forget it." Her own hands wandered beneath his sweater, stroking his back. "I'll never forget it," he vowed again.

"I won't let you," she said as her fingers lightly glided from his back to his sides.

"Don't. Don't ever let me. If I should ever lose my mind and start to, don't let me forget it," Roger pleaded as he slid his hands beneath her robe and began to caress her as she continued caressing him.

"I won't," she promised. He moved his head to kiss the side of her neck, finding the magic spot below her ear that always made her moan, which she did as she shifted on his lap, straddling him as he growled low in his throat. She lifted her head to meet his kiss, and their tongues eagerly dueled.

After another couple of minutes, they forced themselves to stop, and Roger asked, "Bed?"

"Too far," Holly panted.

"Living room it is," Roger said. He stood up, wrapping his arms around her lower back. Holly wrapped her legs around his waist and showered his throat with kisses as he carried her to the living room. Once there, she slid down him until she was standing and shed her untied robe. He reached for her at the same time she reached for the hem of his sweater. She tugged his sweater over his head and made quick work of his belt, pants and boxers. Then they fell together to the floor and gave themselves over to the passion exploding between them.

_December 30, 1994, 2:40 PM—Cliff House_

After sharing a shower that lasted until the water was freezing cold because the actual showering was interspersed with several heated make-out sessions, and a lunch of vegetable soup and ham and cheese sandwiches, Roger took Holly's hand and said, "Come with me."

"Are we going to make out some more?" she asked eagerly as she followed Roger to the couch. "Maybe I shouldn't have worn a sweater with so many buttons." She gestured to her emerald green cardigan that buttoned to her throat over a long-sleeved white crewneck tee and light blue jeans.

"You look beautiful," Roger told her as he sat down on the couch, still holding her hand, and pulled her down to sit beside him. "In fact, I don't think I've ever told you, but green is my favorite color on you." He gave her an admiring once-over. "That sweater really brings out the auburn of your hair, the creaminess of your skin, the flecks of gold in your eyes…" He trailed off as Holly turned to face him, placing her palms flat on his chest.

"Now, see, that sounds to me like we're going to make out," she said teasingly.

"Not yet," Roger amended, forcing himself to stay on task. "You've been all about the surprises since you told me on Christmas Eve that you'd marry me, and I have enjoyed every one of them—"

"I'm glad to hear that, because I'm not done yet," Holly interjected.

"But I have a surprise for you that I'd like to give to you now," Roger continued. "It's…well…sort of a wedding present, I guess. Or it could be, in a way. Possibly." Now he felt as nervous as Holly had on their arrival, wondering how she would react to what he was about to say.

She tilted her head and looked at him quizzically, having no idea what he was trying to say. "Okay, what is it?" she asked, sitting up again and resting her bent elbow on the back of the couch as she looked at him encouragingly, curious about what his surprise for her was.

Roger took out his wallet, removed a card from it, and handed it to her. Holly took the card and looked at it. It was a business card that said, "Roger Thorpe, Management Consultant." She looked from the card to her husband. Before she could say a word, Roger blurted, "I want to go into business for myself."

Holly blinked. "As a management consultant," she said, gesturing at him with the card.

"Yes," Roger said. The words came more easily now that he'd gotten out the big announcement. "We both know that I bought into WSPR in the first place as a way to help you out. I plan on retaining my ownership in the station, at least for the time being, but I feel like I'm just a figurehead there lately. And even though I'm done with the whole pursuit of Spaulding mess, it made me realize that I miss big business. I have the knowledge and the expertise, and I want to build my own company, Holly, for myself, for us, for our future."

"I think it's a great idea," Holly replied enthusiastically.

"Really?" Roger asked hopefully.

"Yes, really," Holly assured him. "You've always been ambitious, ever since we first met. And you've always had a head for business. Being in big business makes you happy."

"No, being with you makes me happy," Roger corrected her. "But professionally speaking, business is what I know, and it's what I enjoy the most."

"Then that's what you should do," Holly replied.

"It's not easy, starting up a consulting firm," Roger said.

"You'll thrive on the challenge," Holly said, scooting close enough to put her arms around his neck.

"It's going to take some time for me to get into the black and stay there," Roger warned.

"We'll be fine," Holly said confidently. She rubbed the back of his neck. "This is obviously what you really want to do, and I love that you're including me—"

"Of course I'm including you," Roger said. "Last summer when that whole Spaulding near-disaster started, you told me that you wanted to be included." It had taken a lifetime, and several months of couples therapy, but Roger had finally learned to really listen to Holly about what she wanted and needed in their relationship, and learning to include her in everything had actually turned out to be much easier than he'd thought it would, partly because she genuinely wanted to be a part of it all, no matter what it was. "I've been thinking for a while about starting my own company, and I think now is the time. A new job to go with my new life as the most happily married man on the planet."

Holly smiled at Roger. "It took us long enough to learn how to do it," she said, "but I think we're starting to get the hang of including each other in our individual lives."

"I think so too," Roger agreed. "So just to be clear, you're fine with me starting my own management consulting firm."

"Absolutely," Holly asserted. "Last summer and fall, when we were caught up in all that stuff with Alan and Alexandra, I saw how much you enjoyed it, and how in your element you were. But we both have a bad history with the Spauldings, honey."

Roger grimaced. "Don't I know it," he said. "Although I guess it wasn't **all** bad."

They looked at each other for a second, and read each other's minds, saying in unison, "Acapulco." Considering the watershed that trip to Acapulco had ultimately turned out to be for them and their relationship, in her own bizarre way, Alexandra Spaulding, of all people, had been helpful to them by getting them to Acapulco in the first place, along the same bizarre lines as Billy Lewis and the bullet he had pumped into Roger's chest a year ago had been helpful to them. Which reminded Roger…

"Part of the reason it's going to take a while to get into the black and stay there is because I have no intention of dealing with Spaulding Enterprises, Lewis Oil, or any of their subsidiaries," Roger told her. "We…or at least I…have a bad history with the Lewises too."

"I'm glad to hear that," Holly replied firmly. "The Spauldings, especially Alex and Alan, are too treacherous, and the Lewises, especially Billy, tend to get way too violent where you're concerned, and we've had enough of all that to last us several lifetimes."

Roger smiled. "You just reminded me of something I haven't thought of in years." At her inquiring look, he said, "The night Alex told Billy Lewis about my affair with Mindy and he gave me that beating at the Blue Moon. Everybody else just walked right by me, but the minute you walked out on that terrace and saw me, right away you dropped to my side and started trying to take care of me. You cleaned me up, you went with me to the hospital… You were amazing that night, Hol."

"You were lying on the ground bleeding and broken and you could barely talk. It bothered me to see you like that. And as I remember, Fletcher and the rest of the self-righteous hypocrite brigade at the Blue Moon weren't lifting a finger to help you, at least not until I insisted, and you really needed help." Holly shuddered at the memory.

"Hey, I survived that and worse, thanks to you," Roger reminded her, rubbing her back soothingly. "And now, here we are."

"Mmm, yes, here we are," Holly agreed with a smile. "Getting back to the original subject, though, definitely, you should do this, Roger. You enjoy big business, you're good at it, and to tell you the truth, I find it very sexy when you're in boardroom swashbuckler mode."

"'Boardroom swashbuckler'?" Roger repeated, laughing.

"Yes," Holly said, sliding her arms around his neck once more. "You get that twinkle in your eye and that cocky swagger about you when you're studying all the angles and analyzing the best way to get the most out of whatever the transaction is. You're like Errol Flynn in those old pirate movies, only without the sword, and seeing you like that… I find it very appealing."

"That's good to know," Roger responded. "'Boardroom swashbuckler,'" he then said again. "I like that." He paused for a second, then said, "So when we go home, I'll start looking for an office. And yes," he added when Holly opened her mouth to speak, "I will show it to you as soon as I find an office with potential."

She returned his knowing smile, then looked at the business card. "How many of these did you have printed up?" she asked.

"Just the one," Roger replied. At her look of surprise, he said, "I hadn't talked to you yet. I had to be sure before I put in a bulk order. The guy behind the counter at the print shop gave me the strangest look, but…" He let the sentence end unfinished. "So that's the sort-of wedding present: I'm going into business for myself, and I'm done chasing after Spaulding Enterprises. No more Spauldings…or Lewises, for that matter. Everything that I was trying to get from going after control of Spaulding… It was all just a very poor substitute for you." He passed a hand through her hair. "Towards the end of that whole Spaulding mess there, I knew. The day Alex barged into our bedroom—"

"I could have drop kicked her from the nearest balcony for that," Holly said, feeling a flash of remembered anger. The anger faded then as she remembered how Roger had handled Alex that day. "At least, I could have until you told her off." She traced the contours of Roger's face. "Knowing that you were choosing me, choosing us, over Spaulding Enterprises…"

"It wasn't a choice," Roger said emphatically. "It was never a choice. When you told me how much it hurt you, and how much it bothered you, when I married Alex, and how much it still bothered you to see me spending so much time with her, on top of the arguments and slammed doors in the face we'd been having lately at the time, I knew that I was running the very real risk of losing the only woman I've ever loved, and the only thing I have wanted in life since I was a young man. Alex barging in like that was the last straw. I knew it was time to cut ties, because losing you, Holly… That is one risk I refuse to take ever again. So no more Spauldings. You and our life together and our marriage, it's too important to me. I'm not going to let anything or anyone separate us ever again."

She looked at him and saw the ferocity of his commitment to both her and to the promise he'd just made her blazing in his eyes. She could only kiss him in reply, knowing he would feel in her kiss how much this sort-of wedding present meant to her.

Their kisses were growing more passionate when Holly made herself pull back. "Wait a minute, wait a minute," she said. "I have something for you too."

"I think I know what it is," Roger said with a smirk, moving to pull her into his arms again.

"No, this is something else, before we get to that," Holly said, forestalling him with a hand on his arm, and then making herself leave his side. "It's my wedding present for you." She went over to the closet and took the overnight bag she had stowed there down from the shelf. She removed the manila envelope from the bag, replaced it, and resumed her seat beside Roger. Then she handed him the envelope.

He took it, wondering what it could possibly be, then opened it and removed the papers inside. After reading them, he looked at Holly, astounded. She nodded her head. "I added your name to the house," she said.

When he continued to just look at her, astounded, she explained, "When you first moved in to stay, and we would lie awake at night talking after one of us had made our way over to the other's bedroom during the 'you have your room and I'll have my room and we'll visit' phase, one of the first nights, you said that you had never been happier anywhere else in your whole life than you were in that house with me. I was surprised when you first said it, because you had lived in a lot more upscale places, a lot bigger and more expensive.

"But then I thought about it, and I thought about what that really said about you. And what it made me realize was that all those big, expensive places you had lived in were just places where you had lived. They weren't home to you. And I understand that because I went through the same thing. For the longest time, the places where I lived...that's all they were. They weren't home.

"But my house, **our **house… That's home. And it never felt as much like home to me as it has since you moved in." She grinned and added, "And since we dropped the whole separate bedrooms thing." His astonishment gave way to an answering grin after she said this. She put her hand on his shoulder and concluded, "So, since it is **our **house…since it's **our home**… I added your name so that you, as well as the county and the bank, know that it's ours."

Awestruck, Roger swallowed hard, set the papers on the coffee table, and then engulfed Holly in an embrace. "This is—" he started to say, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat.

She kissed his cheek and whispered, "I know" in his ear before resting her chin lightly on his shoulder.

"You're amazing," he said, pulling back to look into her eyes. "Just...amazing."

"So are you," she replied with a smile. She rested her hands at the back of his neck. "1994 has been quite a year for us." She moved closer in his arms. "And when it ends tomorrow night, we get to start off together on the grand adventure that will be 1995, and I can't wait to see what the new year brings."

"Neither can I," Roger replied. Just before her lips met his, he murmured again, "Neither can I."


	7. New Year's Eve

_December 31, 1994, 9:48 PM—Cliff House_

As 1994 wound down, Roger and Holly were stretched out on the couch, where they had retreated after dinner. The bottle of champagne they had opened and two empty plastic champagne glasses were sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch. A small stack of books was in Holly's lap, and she was sitting so her back was against Roger's chest. He had his arms wrapped around her waist from behind and was resting his chin lightly on her shoulder as she read aloud to him. She had read several poems at random, but was now looking for a specific one. She was paging through a book, when she suddenly announced triumphantly, "Ah, here it is!" Then she began to read aloud:

_"'We cannot live, except thus mutually_

_We alternate, aware or unaware, _

_The reflex act of life: and when we bear _

_Our virtue onward most impulsively, _

_Most full of invocation, and to be _

_Most instantly compellant, certes, there _

_We live most life, whoever breathes most air _

_And counts his dying years by sun and sea._

_But when a soul, by choice and conscience, doth_

_Throw out her full force on another soul,_

_The conscience and the concentration both_

_Make mere life, Love. For Life in perfect whole_

_And aim consummated, is Love in sooth_

_As nature's magnet-heat rounds pole with pole.'"_

She closed the book, set the stack on the coffee table, and then rolled over so that she was lying on top of Roger. He rested his hands at the small of her back as he looked at her adoringly. "You've got that look again," she said, sliding her arms up his chest and clasping her hands together behind his neck.

"What look?" he asked.

"That 'Holly hung the moon and stars' look," she replied.

"For me, you did," he said simply. "I'm going to marvel at you loving me this way for the rest of our lives. You'll just have to get used to it."

"I think I can manage that," she said, gently raking her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. "It goes both ways, you know. I have never in my life felt as loved and as cherished as you make me feel every day." She kissed him softly then. When she pulled back, she quoted from the poem she had just read. "'But when a soul, by choice and conscience, doth throw out her full force on another soul, the conscience and the concentration both make mere life, Love.'"

"'By choice and conscience,'" Roger repeated. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

She stroked his face tenderly. "You're where I want to be. You're where I belong. You're the love of my life. Forever," she said softly.

"Forever," Roger whispered. "That's finally what we have."

"Yeah," Holly whispered back, relishing the look of amazement in his eyes at that simple fact.

They let the moment linger, just gazing into each other's eyes, letting their love surround them like a thick, warm blanket.

"I always hoped," Roger finally broke the silence to say, "but this time last year, I never could have guessed we'd be here now, though I'm elated that we are."

"I would have moved heaven and earth if that's what it took to keep you alive and with me," Holly replied, playing with the collar of his shirt. "Realizing that I could have lost you forever finally made me see how much I wanted and needed you in my life…how much I wanted us to be together. In this crazy world, in this short life, I choose you." Roger smiled, remembering the first time Holly had said those words to him, the day she told him she wanted to be with him and to hell with what anybody else thought about them. "And I will always defend you against your detractors," she continued. "I will always have your back."

"Will you always have my front, too?" Roger asked with a sly grin.

Holly rolled her eyes. "Yes, I will," she said. "I'm very fond of the whole Roger Thorpe package. Don't say it," she said, pointing a finger at him when he opened his mouth to speak again, knowing he was about to make some suggestive remark about her being fond of the whole Roger Thorpe package. Then they both laughed.

When they recovered themselves, Holly said, "I think we've been sitting still for too long. We need to get up and move around while we're waiting for midnight to get here." Then she thought of something. "I wonder…" she began. She got up and walked over to the 10-foot solid oak hutch against the wall by the front door.

Roger got up and followed her. "What are we looking for?" he asked as he stopped behind her.

"I saw an old portable record player and some 45s in here when Michelle and I were here before," Holly replied as she opened the doors to the hutch. "I wonder if they're still here?" She scanned the shelves, and Roger did too.

"Here are the records," he said, reaching two shelves above Holly's head to retrieve a stack of 45 RPM records.

Holly was now looking on the lower shelves. She hunkered down and moved some things around on the very bottom shelf. "And here's the record player," she said. She stood up, holding it, and asked, "So, what kind of songs are in that stack of records you've got there?"

Roger was leaning a hip against the arm of the couch as he shuffled through the records in their dusty paper sleeves. The records were all oldies and vocal jazz standards, and he was about to answer Holly when his eyes lit on the last record in the stack. "Oldies and some jazz," he replied.

"Could you be a little more specific?" Holly asked.

"I could, but I won't," Roger replied, carefully setting all but the last record in the stack on one of the couch cushions. He smiled at her. "It has just occurred to me that we haven't had our first dance as husband and wife yet, Mrs. Thorpe, and I'd like to surprise you with the choice of song, if you will grant me that privilege."

Holly took in the gleam in his eyes. "All right," she agreed. "Surprise me."

Roger took the record player from her and got it set up on the table behind the couch while Holly went to stand in the middle of the room to wait for him. He started the turntable, placed the needle in the record's groove, and a violin intro wafted across the room with fewer cracks and pops than either of them expected. Roger crossed to Holly and took her in his arms as a piano, upright bass, and drums came in under the violin. He took her hand in his, rested his other hand at the small of her back, she rested her other hand on his shoulder, and they slowly began to dance as Ella Fitzgerald began to sing.

_Heart and soul, I fell in love with you_

_Heart and soul, the way a fool would do_

_Madly_

_Because you held me tight_

_And stole a kiss in the night_

As soon as Holly recognized the song, her face lit up, and she beamed at Roger. He grinned back, resting their clasped hands over his heart as they slowly swayed in time to the music.

_Heart and soul, I begged to be adored_

_Lost control, and tumbled overboard_

_Gladly_

_That magic night we kissed_

_There in the moon mist_

"I'll never forget that night," Roger said. "You came home with the piano I was raised on. Playing for you and Chrissy, and then Chrissy watching you and me play this song together…"

"And then after Blake went home, you played for me," Holly replied. "The blues." They both smiled at the memory then.

"That's when I was sure that you loved me," Roger said as he turned her in a slow half-circle. "You hadn't said it yet, and the threat of arrest was hanging over my head, but that night…" He stroked her cheek with his thumb. "I knew we finally had a real chance, and that you wanted to be with me as much as I wanted to be with you."

"I did," Holly replied, her hand stroking his hair as they continued to dance. "When I found the piano, and I saw that it was the one you grew up playing, I had to buy it. It was time to start following my heart instead of my head. I was afraid I was going to lose you before we really got to start over again without the threats of death or prison hanging over us, and I wanted to somehow show you that you and I were finally on the same page." She touched her forehead to his.

"You make me so happy, Holly," he said huskily. "Happier than I ever thought I could be."

"You make me happy too," she replied. Then he kissed her as the song played on.

_Oh! But your lips were thrilling_

_Much too thrilling_

_Never before were mine so strangely willing_

_But now I see_

_What one embrace can do_

_Look at me_

_It's got me loving you madly_

_That little kiss you stole_

_Held all my heart and soul_

They were hardly moving as the song concluded, just standing there, eyes closed, foreheads touching, holding each other and shifting their weight ever so slightly.

_Oh! But your lips were thrilling_

_Much too thrilling_

_Never before were mine so strangely willing_

_But now I see_

_What one embrace can do_

_Look at me_

_It's got me loving you madly_

_That little kiss you stole_

_Held all my heart and soul_

The scratch of the record player's needle on the record's label finally brought them out of their reverie. Roger reluctantly released Holly long enough to go and turn off the record player. "Want to head upstairs?" he asked.

"You read my mind," Holly replied. After turning out the lights downstairs, they walked upstairs with their arms around each other's waists. Once in the bedroom, Holly said, "Wait here for me. I have one more surprise for you. Why don't you get ready for bed?"

Recognition dawned in Roger's eyes. They had managed to forego pajamas the entire trip so far, getting too caught up in each other too quickly to use them, but he had seen his black pajamas at the bottom of his suitcase, so it stood to reason that Holly would have brought along something in the way of sleepwear as well, and since it was their honeymoon, he had a pretty good idea of what kind of sleepwear it would be.

He leaned in and kissed her forehead. "Okay, I'll wait right here," he promised. Holly took her suitcase into the bathroom, and while she was changing, Roger got into his pajamas and into bed.

He was propped up against the pillows, his hands laced together over his stomach, when Holly emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later in a silk nightgown of forest green that just brushed her knees. It took Roger a minute to remember to breathe at the sight of her, the gown's thin shoulder straps and sweetheart neckline showing off her alabaster skin and complementing her auburn hair and brown eyes to perfection. "It's a happy coincidence that I picked this out in what I didn't know at the time is your favorite color on me," she said as she stood beside the bed smiling at him. "Do you like it?" She pulled back the covers on her side of the bed.

"Like is an understatement," Roger said, not taking his eyes off Holly as she climbed into the bed beside him and pulled the covers up to their waists. "You take my breath away."

Holly smiled as she slid closer to him. "I like you breathless," she said, "especially when I'm the cause."

They lay on their sides facing each other, Holly gently, lightly caressing his chest while they talked. "So, it's almost 1995," Roger said. "And this year, I get to kiss you at midnight."

"You could have kissed me at midnight last year if you hadn't gone out the window before then," Holly told him.

Holly found the look on Roger's face comical. "Really?" he asked.

"Really. I was formulating an excuse for a kiss at midnight," she admitted, biting her bottom lip. "I was all set to shove Blake out the door, threaten Ed to get him to keep his mouth shut to the police about you, and come back to you lying back there in bed, except Blake found that you'd gone out the window while I was arguing with Ed. At least Ed didn't turn you in then, if only because he knew I honestly had no idea where you were."

Roger would have greatly enjoyed kissing Holly last New Year's Eve. At the time, he didn't think she would have gone for it, but it turned out she was already planning out a midnight kiss before he went out the window to avoid getting sent to either the hospital or jail. "So what would your excuse have been," he wanted to know, "if I'd been there for you to kiss at midnight?"

"Well, I would have told you that it was just a tradition," she said. "But that wouldn't have been the real reason. If you had been there, I would have kissed you at midnight because I wanted to. And also because I was so grateful that you were still there to see 1994 come in. And because I couldn't get you to go to the hospital and have the bullet removed, I wanted to give you some incentive to keep fighting to stay alive."

"You gave me plenty of incentive even without that midnight kiss," Roger said, catching her hand on his chest and bringing it to his lips to kiss it. "Still… Do I get a makeup kiss? For the one I missed last year?"

"I think that can be arranged," Holly agreed with a flirtatious smile. She shifted closer to Roger, still lying on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the other rubbing his chest gently through his still-buttoned pajama top. "I never really liked New Year's Eve," she confessed.

"It didn't do much for me either," Roger agreed. "I never had any memorable ones, really. At least, none that were enjoyable, seeing how we spent last New Year's Eve."

"It was always just another night," Holly concurred. "All it ever really meant was that I'd have to remember to write the next year on all my checks going forward. At least, that's all it ever really meant until you took off from the house with that bullet still in you."

She looked at him intently as her fingers unconsciously opened the top button on his pajama top and slipped inside to stroke his bare chest. "I thought the longest days of my life were the days you were missing after you'd been shot, and everyone thought you were dead," she said. "But those were nothing compared to those couple of days when I knew you were out there only God knew where, alive but badly hurt. I didn't breathe easy again until Bridget took me to you at the farm. And although I've never been a fan of Eve Guthrie, I was actually relieved she followed me out there, because she knew how to remove a bullet."

Her hand stilled, resting over his heart, savoring the feel of its steady beat. "As I sat there on that freezing cold screened porch, holding your hand while Eve dug that bullet out of your chest without anesthetic or even surgical tools… That was the moment everything crystallized for me. I knew that I would be with you from then on. I wanted a life with you, filled with all the ordinary, everyday kind of things that we'd never had before, and I was determined that we were finally going to get our chance."

Roger just looked at Holly. "So many times, we would start to get close. Acapulco…when I saved you from Daniel St. John…the last time we were here. And then it would all blow up somehow. Something or someone else would get in the way, or most likely, I would get in the way because I would screw everything up badly."

"It wasn't always you. I did my fair share of screwing up too," Holly reminded him. "But I promise you, I won't be pushing you away ever again. We'll still have arguments, that's human nature. But no more walls between us, no more shutting you out, and no more pushing you away."

He rested his hand over the hand of hers that was still resting on his heart, and now it was her breath that was taken away by the achingly earnest look on his face. "Being married to you, Holly… It's all I've ever really wanted in life. I can't promise that I'll never screw up again, but I can, I **do, **promise that I won't screw up like that, that badly, with you ever again."

"I know you won't," Holly replied softly, rolling over so that she was straddling him now. "I have faith in you."

"I have faith in you too," Roger replied, running his fingers up and down her spine.

"Now, New Year's Eve finally means something," she said, tracing the fingers of one hand down his jaw, "because we get to bring in the new year together, and then we get to go through it together."

He caught her hand under his chin and held it. "I used to wish time would stop whenever we were together," he told her.

"And you don't anymore?" Holly asked.

"No," Roger declared, "because when I wanted time to stop, it was because I never knew when I'd be with you again, so I wanted those moments to last forever. But now…" He tucked her hair behind her ear. "Now we have a lifetime, and I'm looking forward to every moment I get to spend with you."

She touched his face tenderly, then dropped her hands to splay across his chest. "Happy New Year, Roger," she said.

"Happy New Year, Holly," he replied before he pulled her into a passionate kiss to start 1995 off right.

**The poem is "Love" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  
**


	8. The First Full Day of a Brand New Year

_January 1, 1995, 7:17 AM—Cliff House_

Roger awoke on the first day of 1995 spooned up against Holly, who was still sleeping. He carefully slid one arm out from around her waist beneath the covers to prop his head on his hand and just watch her sleeping.

Waking up beside Holly like this was one of those ordinary, everyday kind of things, which she had referred to generally the night before, that Roger had always wanted and, for the longest time, never thought he would get to do. He would forever savor getting to wake up every morning and fall asleep every night beside her. The road getting here was long and agonizing, full of twists and turns, bumps and potholes, but it had all been worth it, because they were finally solidly together and happily married. _I'll get to wake up beside her as my wife every single day this year, and for the rest of my life,_ he thought. He couldn't stop the smile that he felt taking over his face at this realization.

Holly shifted then, turning to face him with a groan, her eyes still closed. "Is it morning already?" she asked sleepily.

Roger, well aware of Holly's aversion to getting up in the morning, couldn't stop his smile from growing wider. He brushed her hair off her face and whispered, "It is, but you don't have to get up."

"Do you?" she asked, still not opening her eyes. "Have to get up? For anything?"

"No," he replied.

"Good," she murmured as she rested her head on his chest and brought her hand up to rest on his shoulder with a contented sigh. "I could stay here like this all day," she added as she snuggled down onto his chest.

"Why don't we?" Roger asked.

Holly was already almost asleep again. "Why don't we what?" she asked drowsily.

"Why don't we stay here in bed like this all day?" Roger suggested.

"Mmm-kay," Holly agreed before her breathing evened out and she was fast asleep again.

As he lay there with Holly asleep on his chest, Roger reflected that the first day of the rest of his life was off to the best possible start.

_January 1, 1995, 10:14 AM—Cliff House_

When Holly surfaced into consciousness again, it was three hours later. As she blinked her eyes open, she vaguely remembered being barely awake earlier, and Roger saying something about staying in bed all day. She looked to Roger beside her, sitting up against the headboard, watching her. "How long have you been watching me sleep?" she asked as she sat up and stretched her arms over her head.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "Time holds no meaning for me in the presence of my muse."

"I'm your muse?" Holly asked with a smile. "I like the sound of that."

"You inspire me every day of our lives," he told her, reaching for her hand and threading his fingers through hers.

"Speaking of inspiration, did you say something earlier about staying in bed all day, or did I dream that?" she asked.

"No, I said it," he replied.

"**That **is what I call an inspired idea," Holly said.

"I figured it would be a big hit with you, considering how much you hate getting up in the morning," Roger said with a grin.

"I don't hate everything about getting up in the morning," Holly retorted. "I like the way you kiss me awake. Why do you think I ignore the alarm every morning?"

He laughed. "I have a confession to make: I knew that already," he said.

"Does that mean you're going to stop kissing me awake every morning?" she asked with a playful pout.

"Never," Roger vowed. "How about I get us some breakfast?"

"As long as we eat it here," Holly replied, gesturing to the bed.

"All day in bed," Roger reminded her. He kissed her quickly, then went downstairs, returning a few minutes later with a tray filled with scrambled eggs, toast, orange juice and coffee.

After they ate, washed up, and brushed their teeth, they returned to bed. Roger leaned back against the headboard and Holly lay in his arms, her cheek resting against his shoulder, her hand rubbing small circles on his chest. "I love the way you can't keep your hands off me whenever we're alone," he said happily.

"For a long time, I didn't get to touch you at all. I think I must be trying to make up for that," Holly replied, her hand still rubbing small circles on Roger's chest as she lifted her head to kiss his jaw.

He turned his head to look at her and took her hand from his chest, holding it in his own. "I love your hands," he told her. "They're so soft, but they're also the strongest hands I've ever known. Your hands soothed me when I had a bullet in my chest…they relax me when you rub the tension out of my shoulders…they make my heart jump when you touch my face…they set my skin on fire when we're making love…" He trailed off and kissed her hand softly then. When she touched his face with the hand he wasn't holding, he closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again to look at her and said, "I will never stop being amazed that I get to feel your touch in all its forms every day…or that you're my wife."

"I love you," she said seriously. "Even when you exasperate and annoy me, which you do sometimes…" He graced her with a mischievous grin then as she continued, "…I love you, so very much." She traced a fingertip around his smile. "You drive me crazier than anyone else on this earth," she continued.

"I always thought that was part of my charm," he replied.

"Oh, it is," she assured him. "You've always driven me crazier than anyone else on this earth. It's just that now, more often than not, it's a good kind of crazy. Only once in a while do you drive me up the wall and through the roof wanting to throttle you. And even then, you always somehow manage to realize when you've gone too far, or are about to, and make it up to me."

The grin returned to his face, but it wasn't mischievous now; it was proud. "I found the point," he said.

"What point?" Holly asked.

"Last summer," he said. "You said you're happier when you're cheering me on than when you're scolding me, and I said that I know that, but I don't always know where the point is that I go too far and the cheering stops."

Holly remembered the conversation then. "Yes, you did," she said. "You remember what I said word for word?"

"I remember every word you've ever said to me since we both turned up back in Springfield," Roger confessed. "I remember every look on your face, every moment with you, good and bad. I've got you memorized."

"Now you've taken my breath away," Holly replied, looking at him tenderly.

"I like you breathless, especially when I'm the cause." Roger parroted her words to him the night before when he had told her she had taken his breath away. "You can exasperate and annoy me too, but that's also part of your charm, because nobody else could ever drive me crazy the way you do," he continued. "And I think the fact that we can exasperate and annoy each other like no one else and we still love each other the way we do shows how much we've grown."

"Definitely," she agreed. "And we've finally learned how to fight fair. That's important."

"Very important." He stroked her hair. "I am so madly in love with you. And getting to spend the rest of my life with you, driving you crazy and fighting with you and making up with you and making you happy…" He let his hand fall to her shoulder.

Holly felt herself smiling and tearing up at the same time. Roger looked surprised that she was welling up with tears, but she assured him, "It's just now hitting me that this is what the rest of my life is going to be like." She gently pulled her hand back to swipe at her eyes before she resumed caressing his chest and back and arm. "Falling asleep with you every night and having you kiss me awake every morning. Looking up from the book I'm reading to find a steaming mug of hazelnut coffee or apple cinnamon tea at my elbow."

He ran his hand from her shoulder blade down her back to rest on her hip. "Coming home to you every night," he said. "Curling myself around you to go to sleep. The way you twirl your hair around your finger when you get really engrossed in the book you're reading. Evenings on the couch, whether we're talking or watching TV or necking." He moved in closer, his fingers stroking her hip and moving to her thigh.

"Listening to you play the piano. Talking in bed at night before we fall asleep," Holly said, lying back and sliding her arms up Roger's back, then pulling him down to her. "Driving you crazy, and fighting with you and making up with you and making you happy."

"The way you smile when I drop by to see you at work. Listening to you read aloud," Roger said, leaning in to kiss her.

"Making love with you," she breathed as her eyes fluttered closed.

"Oh, yes," Roger whispered just before their lips met. He kissed his way from her lips down to the tops of her breasts, eliciting a moan of pleasure from deep inside her. When he lifted his head to meet her now open eyes, he marveled, as he always did when they made love, at the look in her eyes, at the love and desire she felt for him burning there bright and clear. He stroked her cheek and said softly, "The way you look at me when we're making love." He held her gaze as he blazed a path with his hand from her cheek down the side of her neck to her shoulder to stroke her breast through the satin of her nightgown, reveling at the way her breath caught in her throat and the expression of pure pleasure on her face.

She framed his face in her hands and pulled him down to her again to claim his mouth in a hungry kiss. So caught up in the kiss was he that he was surprised when she flipped them so that she was on top of him. She broke the kiss to undress him, throwing his pajamas and boxers haphazardly to the foot of the bed. He skimmed his hands up her sides to her shoulders and removed her nightgown, which he tossed to the foot of the bed with his clothes. He pressed a kiss over her thundering heart, but then she gently pushed him back onto the pillows, causing him to groan at the sudden loss of contact until he felt her fingers skimming down his body, and her mouth following the path her fingers blazed. Breathlessly, huskily, he whispered her name, half-prayer, half-plea.

She lifted her head after dropping a kiss on his ribcage and focused her heavy-lidded gaze on him. With a smile of pure feminine satisfaction, she said, "The way you say my name when we're making love."

She joined their bodies then, echoing his delighted moan, and as they moved together, they let the plethora of sensations envelop them, reveling in the touch, the taste, the feel, the sight, the sound, the movements of one another, until, at last, the only sensation was the towering waves of pleasure that crashed over them, sweeping them away as they held tightly to each other.

_January 1, 1995, 7:56 PM—Cliff House_

They spent the rest of the day in bed, alternately talking, dozing, Holly reading aloud some more to the enchanted Roger, and making love, getting up only to raid the refrigerator a little after two and to answer calls of nature.

A few minutes before 8 PM, they finally noticed the time for the first time since they'd eaten lunch, and Holly insisted on putting together dinner to eat in bed since Roger had gotten breakfast in bed. She returned to the bedroom, carrying a plate of sandwiches and potato chips and two bottles of water. Roger was stretched out on the bed wearing his pajama bottoms. She was wearing his pajama top, and he looked at her appreciatively as she handed him the plate and set the water bottles on the nightstand while she settled herself on the bed next to him. "You look much better in that than I ever did," he said as he set the plate on the bed between them.

"I hope that's not your way of suggesting you try on my pajamas," she replied dryly as she opened one of the water bottles and handed it to him. "I'd hate to think you looked better in that than I did." She nodded at the green nightgown slung over the footboard of the bed as she opened her own bottle of water.

Roger laughed. "Impossible," he said. "No one else would look better in that nightgown than you do."

"So, me in your clothes does it for you? I'll have to remember that," Holly said, picking up her sandwich to take a bite.

"You in my clothes, you in your clothes, you in no clothes…you could be wearing that sandwich, and you'd do it for me," Roger replied, picking up his own sandwich. He lifted the top slice of bread and smiled when he saw the sandwich's filling: tuna, mayonnaise, lettuce, and tomato. "Another happy coincidence?" he asked, saluting her with his sandwich.

"Partly," Holly replied before taking another bite of her own sandwich. "The other part is that we have to go home tomorrow, so we don't have much food left."

"That was some kiss," Roger reminisced as he began to eat.

"Yes, it was," Holly replied. "I had dreams about that kiss for months afterward."

"So did I," Roger admitted, picking up a potato chip and feeding it to Holly. "I've never been able to think of tuna sandwiches the same way since."

"This is turning out to be a very informative dinner," Holly joked as she picked up a potato chip and fed it to him. "Me in your clothes…tuna sandwiches… It really doesn't take much to get you going, does it?"

"Says the woman who looks at me lasciviously when I'm playing the piano," Roger bantered back.

"I look at you lasciviously when you're playing the piano?" Holly echoed, her eyes twinkling.

"You undress me with your eyes," Roger retorted gleefully, "especially on 'Air on the G String.' The last time I played that, I was just waiting for you to climb up on top of the piano and start slithering around seductively."

"I knew it!" Holly exclaimed. She pointed at him. "I **knew **you had a _Fabulous Baker Boys _fantasy about me!" She smirked at him triumphantly.

"I have countless fantasies about you," Roger replied honestly. "I'll admit, the _Fabulous Baker Boys _one is in the top three, but there are so many others."

"Like what?" Holly asked.

"Like this," Roger said, gesturing around them, the remaining half of his sandwich in one hand, his water bottle in the other. "Eating sandwiches and potato chips in bed with you has been a big one for a long time." He took a drink of water then continued, "Actually, most of my fantasies about you are ordinary, everyday kind of things."

"Tell me more," Holly said, looking at him raptly. "What other ordinary, everyday kind of fantasies do you have about me?"

"Some of them are pretty…I don't know…silly," Roger said.

"Not to me," Holly said, rubbing his arm reassuringly.

"Well…" Roger began. "It's little things, mostly, like you and I sharing the mirror in the bathroom in the morning, you putting on your makeup while I'm shaving. Decorating the Christmas tree together, which we did a few weeks ago. Traveling. Paris, Rome, London, Monte Carlo, Barcelona… I want to take you everywhere, see the world through your eyes."

"I don't think any of that is silly," Holly said. "I think it all sounds wonderful. In fact, I have some of those kind of fantasies myself."

"You do?" Roger asked.

"Oh, yes," Holly replied. "Coming home after the worst day ever at work, and you're there waiting for me, and you listen to me rant and rave and vent about how horrible my day was, and then you just hold me, and all the stress I was feeling just melts away. And I've thought about traveling with you too, seeing all the places I never wanted to see alone. Going back to Acapulco, too, this time for all the right reasons. And watching snow fall with you."

Roger noticed something out of the corner of his eye then, but didn't let on to Holly. "Watching it snow?" he asked.

"There's just something so calming about that to me," Holly replied. "Standing at the window and watching snowflakes swirl in the air and float gently to the ground...it's so graceful, so serene. It's like nature is saying that in the midst of all the chaos and noise and stress of life, there's still a place for something as delicate and beautiful as a snowfall."

Roger got out of bed then, confusing Holly. "What-?" she started to ask.

He walked around to her side of the bed and extended his hand to her. She got out of bed and put her hand in his, still not sure what he was doing. "I had one of my fantasies come true," he said, turning toward the deck outside. "It's your turn."

She followed his gaze to the glass doors leading to the deck and gasped when she saw what he had seen out of the corner of his eye a few minutes earlier. "It's snowing!" she exclaimed happily.

He moved behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle and resting his cheek lightly against her ear. She rested her hands on his forearms, and they stood there for several minutes, silently watching the thick, fat snowflakes falling softly to the ground.

"It really is magnificent," Roger reflected quietly after a while.

"Isn't it, though," Holly agreed. She turned her head to look at him. "Thank you for watching the snowfall with me."

"I like seeing the world through your eyes," Roger replied. "I never saw the serenity and beauty in a snowfall until you. I never saw so many things until you."

"You're a sentimentalist," Holly told him.

"Only with you," he said earnestly.

She turned in his arms and put her arms around his neck. "Would my sentimental husband like to cuddle up in bed with me?" she asked.

"There is nothing he would like more," Roger replied, sweeping Holly up, carrying her to bed, and then nestling under the covers and into her arms.


	9. Going Home

_January 2, 1995, 8:12 AM—Cliff House_

The first gentle kiss on her cheek had her swimming through the layers of sleep and towards consciousness. That first kiss was followed by another to her cheek, then one to her chin, and a fourth on the corner of her mouth. When she felt his lips gently touch hers, she responded instinctively, kissing him back as her hand flew up to cradle the back of his head. A moment later, the kiss ended, and her eyes fluttered open to the sight of him kneeling at her bedside and gazing at her adoringly. "Good morning," he said softly.

"Good morning," she replied with a sweet smile, but then she frowned slightly. "You're already showered and dressed," she said, taking in his wet hair and blue button-down shirt.

He grinned impishly. "You sound so disappointed about that," he said. "But there is a method to the madness. There's about six inches of snow out there after last night, so I figured we should give ourselves plenty of time to get everything fixed up here before we go home."

"Six inches? That much? I wonder if it snowed back in Springfield?" Holly said as she sat up.

"I'll see if I can get a weather report on the radio while I'm making breakfast and you're in the shower," Roger replied. Just then, he stiffened, then sniffed the air. "The pancakes!" he exclaimed before jumping up, then turning and running out of the room and down the stairs to the kitchen.

"God, you're cute," Holly murmured after Roger beat a hasty retreat. She showered and dressed and headed downstairs to find Roger transferring pancakes from the griddle to a plate, the radio playing music in the background. "Did you manage to save the pancakes?" she asked as she picked up one of the mugs of coffee sitting on the counter and took a sip.

"I only burned the first batch," he replied, "and the first batch is never supposed to turn out very well anyway." He held up the plate of pancakes proudly. "Batches two and three, for your approval, madame."

As they ate, Roger said, "So, we don't have to go back to work until tomorrow."

"You have something in mind for when we get home later?" Holly asked.

"You and me, a roaring fire in the fireplace, the couch, and a bottle of wine," he replied.

"Yes, that couch is amazing," she said.

"Oh, so it's the couch that's the main attraction?" Roger asked playfully.

Holly took a sip of coffee, then answered, "No, actually, it's who I was on the couch with and what we were doing there that's the main attraction. Besides, it'll be a first for us."

"We've had wine and necked on the couch by the fire before," he reminded her.

"Ah, but not since getting married," she pointed out with a grin, her eyes dancing.

"That's true," Roger said, returning her grin. "Looking at it that way, we have a lot of firsts coming up."

"Maybe we should make a list," she said, "so we don't miss anything."

Before Roger could agree, they heard the announcement of the forthcoming newscast, but they were both stunned when the radio DJ concluded, "And we'll be leading off our morning news update at 9 with all the latest on the big New Year's Fifth Street Fire in Springfield that destroyed the entire block of homes and businesses, displacing several residents, after these messages."

A commercial came on, but their playful, romantic mood was broken. Holly looked stricken. Roger got up and turned the radio off before returning to the table. Then he spoke. "Of all the streets, in all the towns, in all the world, Fifth Street in Springfield is the one that burns down."

"We were supposed to have today yet, this afternoon," Holly said, still looking stricken. "The fireplace and the couch and the wine."

"Will all still be there tonight," Roger said. "And in a few days, when we'll be more likely able to put them to good use." He took her hand. "This is the biggest news story to hit Springfield in a long time. This will probably go national. And you're the publisher of the local daily newspaper. They're going to need you there."

Holly sighed. "I wish Fifth Street had waited until tomorrow to burn to the ground," she grumbled.

"It's very inconsiderate, I agree," Roger replied. He stroked her hair. "But one of the million and one great things about finally being married is that we get to come home to each other after a long, hard day and just be together. Besides, we were headed home today anyway. We'll just leave a few hours earlier now, so you can go and be brilliant at the _Journal, _and I can call a real estate agent to start looking at office spaces, let Chrissy know we're back, and put in an appearance at WSPR because it would be expected with such a major breaking news story ongoing."

"You're not mad? Or disappointed?" Holly asked, resting the hand he wasn't holding on his shoulder.

"What is there for me to be mad or disappointed about?" Roger asked in reply. "We're married. We've had the most incredible honeymoon. And at the end of the day, I get to come home to you, my wife. That's only everything I've wanted for, oh, my entire adult life. Mad or disappointed? Try overjoyed, Holly."

She touched his face. "I adore you," she said.

He turned his head to drop a kiss in her palm. "The feeling is entirely mutual," he replied. "We'd better finish up so we can finish packing and get on the road."

A short time later, they were ready to go. After Roger loaded the bags in the trunk of the car, he turned and followed Holly's gaze back to Cliff House. "Already thinking about coming back here again sometime?" he asked, putting his arm around her shoulders.

"Yes," she admitted.

"Me too," he said. He kissed her, and then they got in the car and headed back to Springfield.

They surfed between three radio stations on the drive back to Springfield, but the news was still fairly sparse, mostly reiterations of the fact that every building on Fifth Street had burned to the ground as 1994 had turned to 1995, and the cause of the fire was under investigation.

When they got home, Roger carried the bags inside and left them in the bedroom to be unpacked later, then grabbed a tie and jacket out of the closet while Holly changed her clothes. Once he had his tie and jacket on, he called Blake and Ross's house but got their answering machine, so he left a quick message: "Hi, Chrissy, it's Dad. I just wanted to let you know that your mom and I are back, but we're both heading into the office now. Talk to you later."

"Did you call Blake?" Holly asked as she returned to the living room, pulling her hair out of her coat.

"I left a message on the machine," Roger replied. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Holly said. He walked her to her car and then stopped there to straighten her scarf and button the top button of her coat.

"Go be brilliant," he said, "and let all the minions know who's really in charge. Rein in the anarchy they've no doubt gotten up to under Nick and Fletcher while you've been away."

"You make it sound like I'm going to need a chair and a whip to restore order," Holly said dryly.

"Call me if that's the case, because I would love to see that!" Roger exclaimed enthusiastically. When Holly laughed, he said, "Ah, there it is. That's what I was going for. I wanted to get you to smile."

"I have no idea how late I'll be," she said somewhat apprehensively, her smile abruptly fading.

"It doesn't matter," he said. At the brief flash of surprise in her eyes, he quickly continued, "Well, I mean, it does." He pulled her into his arms. "But you're kind of stuck with me forever now, you know, so I'll be waiting for you no matter how late you are. I'll probably just show up at your office when I get to missing you too much."

"We are not having sex on my desk," Holly said firmly.

"Maybe not today…" Roger said.

She peered at him critically. "Is that another one of your fantasies about me?" she asked.

"What do you think?" he asked with an unrepentant grin.

"Uh huh, it is," she decided. "Does it rate higher or lower than your _Fabulous Baker Boys _fantasy?"

"No comment," Roger said. Then he kissed her lingeringly. "I'll call you later," he promised.

"Okay," Holly agreed, squeezing his shoulder. "I love you."

"I love you too," Roger replied. He held her car door for her, then stood in the driveway watching as she backed out and drove away. Then he got in his own car and headed to WSPR.


	10. Back at the Office

_January 2, 1995, 11:25 AM—Springfield Journal_

The scene at the _Journal _when Holly hit the bullpen made her think of a beehive buzzing with worker bees. Everyone was busy, computer keys clicking, phones ringing, people talking on phones, rushing around with papers in their hands. She was halfway to her office when she spotted Fletcher Reade, and she knew he saw her when his expression changed to a frown. "Well, Madame Publisher, how nice of you to grace us with your presence," he said sarcastically as he followed her into her office.

"It's called a vacation, Fletcher. I know you're familiar with the concept," Holly replied as she hung up her coat and put her purse in her bottom desk drawer. "And the week between Christmas and New Year's is generally a down time, what with the holidays and all. Technically, I'm back one day early." She looked through the small stack of mail waiting on her desk; less than ten pieces, and certainly nothing that couldn't wait.

"News is a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week business, and this is the biggest story this town has seen since Roger was shot!" Fletcher exclaimed.

Not bothering to acknowledge the barb Fletcher had intended with his comment about Roger's shooting or to look up from her desk as she unearthed the list of interoffice phone numbers from beside her out basket, Holly said, "It's not like anyone knew in advance that Fifth Street was going to burn to the ground. It was a fire, not an election. And if you're expecting me to apologize for having a life outside this office, you're crazy." Finding the number she wanted, she picked up the phone and punched it in. When someone answered on the other end, she said, "Hello, Maintenance? This is Holly Lindsey. Could you send someone to my office right away, please?...Thank you."

She had been holding the receiver in her left hand, and when she hung up the phone, Fletcher saw her rings and gaped. "You married Roger?!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, I did," Holly replied, finally looking at him. "Is that really such a surprise? We've been back together for a year, we had been engaged to be engaged since June. Marriage is usually the result of an engagement."

"It's official: you've lost your marbles," Fletcher said. "You actually married Roger Thorpe!"

"I haven't lost anything," Holly countered. "And my personal life is none of yours or anybody else's business."

Nick Spaulding barged into Holly's office then. "Fletcher, there you are! Nowitzki got sick again in the men's room and now he's passed out. There's no way he'll make his interview with the mayor this afternoon." Then Nick noticed Holly sitting at her desk. "Oh, you're back," he said. "I thought you weren't coming back until tomorrow."

"We heard about the fire on the radio and came back early," Holly told him. "What's the matter with Nowitzki? Flu?"

Nick snorted. "Hardly. He showed up for work this morning straight from his New Year's bender. When he wakes up, I'm calling him a cab to take him home. We're gonna need someone to handle his interview with the mayor at 1:00. I can't do it. I'm meeting with the fire chief then."

"Lovely," Holly replied, rolling her eyes.

There was a knock at Holly's office door then. "Maintenance," piped up the maintenance worker.

"Thank you for coming so promptly," Holly said as she rose and went to meet the maintenance worker at the door. She gestured to her name in block letters on the door's frosted glass. "I just got back from my honeymoon, so I need you to change my name on the door. Well, actually, I need you to add my new name to my old one, because I'm combining them. With a hyphen."

"Congratulations," the maintenance worker replied with a smile. "What is your married name?"

"Thorpe," Holly replied.

"**That's **where you've been?" Nick asked, surprised.

"I'll get on it right away," the maintenance worker replied, setting down his toolbox.

Holly addressed the maintenance worker. "Thank you."

"You actually legally married Roger Thorpe?" Nick asked, looking at her.

"Well, it certainly isn't an illegal marriage," Holly replied. They were trying to get a rise out of her. But it wasn't going to work. She was confident in her marriage and her personal life, and the rest of the world could go hang, as far as she was concerned. She crossed back to her desk. "I need a list of who's working on what so we can get somebody to cover Nowitzki with the mayor while he's sleeping it off," she said. "And has the AP picked up anything from us yet?"

"This is unbelievable," muttered Fletcher.

"What, that I'm working on the biggest story this town has seen since Roger was shot?" she asked, parroting his words back to him. "I need that list ASAP from one of you. We have a newspaper to put out."

"I'll get it," Nick said, eager to escape.

"I still think you're out of your mind," Fletcher grumbled.

"I don't care what you think," Holly replied blithely, "because I am happy, and it's my personal life. Personal, as opposed to business. Now, one last time: has the AP picked up anything from us yet?"

"Not yet," Fletcher said. He looked at the maintenance man putting the finishing touches on Holly's new name on the door and shook his head again, an expression of disgust on his face, as he left her office.

After Fletcher had returned to his own desk, the maintenance man stepped back from Holly's door. "All done," he said.

Holly went over to look at her door, which now read HOLLY LINDSEY-THORPE. "It looks great. Thank you," she said, smiling at the maintenance man again.

"Congratulations again, Mrs. Lindsey-Thorpe," he said as he packed up his tools and left.

She was still smiling when she returned to her desk to look more closely at the mail while she waited for the list from Nick of which reporters were covering which stories.

_January 2, 1995, 11:37 AM—WSPR_

The station was a madhouse, so Roger thought he might actually be able to make it to his office unnoticed. He thought that right up until Gilly Grant sent the intern she was talking to off with a pat on the shoulder, saying something about the tape vault, saw him, and pulled a face that made her look like she had just sucked on a lemon. "Roger," she acknowledged him.

He nodded. "Gilly," he said, heading into his office.

He wasn't particularly surprised when Gilly came in a moment later, but he was in too good a mood to argue with her or anyone else. She stopped in front of his desk, holding a manila folder in her hand, and Roger finally looked up from his mail to ask, "Did you want something?"

"Just confirming that what I heard from my source at the marriage license bureau the other day was true," Gilly said. She gestured to Roger's left hand. "Holly was actually dumb enough to marry you. I hope neither of you are expecting any congratulations."

"I'll thank you not to talk about my wife that way," Roger replied, the steely undercurrent in both his voice and his eyes making it abundantly clear to Gilly that he would not allow her to make that kind of remark about Holly within his hearing ever again. "Heard anything from New York about picking up any of our reports on the fire nationally?" he asked, deftly changing the subject to work.

"Yes, actually," Gilly said. "In fact, I did a live remote on the scene, and they're using some of my footage." She didn't add that the footage included Vanessa Chamberlain and Matt Reardon passionately making out in the middle of Fifth Street as it burned all around them. She wasn't particularly happy that that was why her piece had been chosen to go national, but business was business, and she would take any national exposure she could get to further her own chances of someday landing at the network herself, or at least at a larger affiliate than WSPR.

"I hope you don't expect congratulations," Roger parried evenly.

The intern Gilly had been talking to when Roger arrived returned then, arms full of videotape boxes. "I found those tapes you wanted, Ms. Grant," she said.

"Thank you, Marcie," Gilly replied. She spun on her heel and followed the intern out of Roger's office. Roger took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and sat down at his desk. He had a lot to do to launch his management consulting business, and he wanted to get started. He pulled the Yellow Pages from his desk to look at the listings for realtors and settled down to work after looking at Holly's ring on his hand with a smile.

**Okay, I know Holly didn't have her name on her office door, at least not in 1994-95, but I couldn't resist. **


	11. Holly's Lunch With Blake

_January 2, 1995, 12:05 PM—Springfield Journal, Holly Lindsey-Thorpe's Office_

The _Journal _was bustling with people and activity when Blake arrived to see her mother. Holly's office door was ajar, but Blake grinned when she noticed that the door now read HOLLY LINDSEY-THORPE. She knocked lightly on the glass, then peeked around the corner of the door. "Welcome home, bride!" she exclaimed. She gestured to Holly's name on the door. "I love how you didn't waste any time having it changed. Dad's gonna flip when he sees it!"

Holly looked up from her desk and smiled. "Blake," she said, pleased to see her daughter as she came out from behind her desk to greet her. "What are you doing here? How did you know we were back?"

"Well, Dad did leave a message on the machine," Blake admitted as she entered, shedding her coat and setting down her purse but holding onto the shopping bag and brown paper bag she was carrying as she gave her mother a one-armed hug, "but I didn't get it until after I heard your reporter at the hospital mention that you were back at work."

"What were you doing at the hospital?" Holly asked, instantly concerned. "Are you and Ross all right?"

"We're fine," Blake assured Holly. "We were there on Fifth Street the night of the fire, but we're both fine. We were giving blood. After I heard that you were back, I went home to get this," she held up the shopping bag before setting it on the floor, "and the light was blinking on the answering machine, and it was Dad, calling to say that you were home and you were both at your offices. I knew you'd never get out of here for lunch, so I thought I'd bring you something and stay and eat with you." She held up the brown paper bag. "I'm going to stop by and see Dad later, but I wanted to see you first." She gave Holly an appraising look, sizing her up. "I'd ask how the honeymoon was, but it's written all over you that it was fabulous, so I'm only going to ask where it was." Blake sat down in Holly's guest chair and propped one foot up on the corner of her desk, looking at her mother expectantly.

Knowing Blake's tendency to be like a dog with a bone when she was after something (like father, like daughter), Holly gave in. "We went to Cliff House," she said, resuming her own seat behind her desk.

Blake looked at her mother as she sat up straight again, her hand flying to her heart. "Oh, Mom," she said, "that's where you and Dad…on the 4th of July," remembering when Holly had confided in her about what went on that night and the next morning after Ed and Michelle Bauer had gone home.

"Yes," Holly replied.

"Wow," Blake said. Hand still on her heart, she continued, "I remember the night you and Dad took off from the Jessup farm after he was shot. I made Ross go out there with me because the police were swarming all over the place, but you had already taken off into the woods. I told Ross then that it was a long time in coming, but you had finally made your choice, and I hoped you two could outrun the whole world." She smiled again. "You finally did, in your own way."

"We didn't outrun the whole world," Holly corrected her. "We've just learned how to live in it without letting it have a negative effect on our relationship." Blake unpacked the sandwiches and sodas she'd brought, and Holly accepted a soda and sandwich. "Thank you. What's in the other bag?" she asked.

"A wedding present," Blake replied, setting aside her own lunch to peer into the bag, then removing a flat package wrapped in silver foil and tied with a white ribbon and placing it in front of her mother.

"You really didn't have to," Holly said.

"I wanted to," Blake replied. "Now, open it already!"

Holly obliged, setting aside her own lunch to pull off the paper and ribbon and opening the box to reveal a silver frame containing one of the many pictures Blake had taken of her and Roger at their wedding. They were embracing, both facing the camera, Roger's arms around Holly's waist, Holly's left hand on Roger's cheek (Ross had good-naturedly held both Blake's and Holly's bouquets while Blake took this picture), their heads touching, beatific smiles on both their faces.

"Oh, Blake," Holly said softly, emotionally, her eyes drinking in the image of her and Roger mere moments after becoming husband and wife.

"In a few days, when everything has settled down, you and Dad can come over for dinner, we'll order in, and the two of you can pick out one of the dozens of pictures I took and we'll have it blown up to an 8x10 for your mantel," Blake said. "But as soon as I saw this picture, I knew it belonged on your desk." Holly looked up from the picture to meet her daughter's gaze. "It's not just that you and Dad look happier than I've ever seen you look in that picture. It goes way beyond that. It's all right there in your eyes, Mom. It's in your eyes right now." Blake leaned forward, resting her arms on the edge of Holly's desk. "I've waited my whole life to see you look like this," she continued. "And the fact that you look like this because of Daddy…" Blake couldn't keep the grin from her face. "If my giddiness starts getting on your nerves, just let me know. I'm surprised Ross hasn't really told me to dial it down yet, but he's being very tolerant of me being so over the moon about you and Dad getting married."

Now Holly grinned. "He loves you, and he likes to see you happy," she said. "This continued happiness thing is still pretty new to us Thorpes, but I think we wear it well, don't you?"

Blake thrilled inside at Holly both referring to herself, Roger and Blake as "us Thorpes" and talking about their continued happiness. "Did you ever think we'd be here?" she asked, leaning back in her chair and unwrapping her sandwich. "You and Dad, and me and Ross, and you and me, the way we are now?"

"There were times I had some serious doubts," Holly admitted. "But being here now like this makes all the hell we all went through worth it."

"So worth it," Blake agreed.

Fletcher barged into Holly's office then with a stack of papers in his hand, and Blake and Holly both turned to look at him. He sneered at Blake, then glowered at Holly and said, "Great, just what we need, a mother-daughter confab about the unholy union you just entered into with Roger the Dodger. We have work to do here, Holly, and I don't see anyone writing anything down for a not-to-be missed salacious exposé on said unholy union."

Holly wasn't going to dignify Fletcher's sarcastic venom with a response. For one thing, he was obviously angry about something else entirely—something having to do with Alexandra Spaulding, no doubt—and was using her and Roger's marriage as a convenient target for that anger, and for another, she really didn't care what he thought. She ignored him and started eating.

But Blake was not about to let Fletcher get away with talking about her parents that way. She regarded him coolly, determined to put him in his place without yelling at the top of her lungs in the process.

"You know, Fletcher," Blake began, "if you're out to write a not-to-be-missed salacious exposé on a couple, then Vanessa Chamberlain and Matt Reardon would make much better copy than my parents, considering that not only did they not even know they were going public, they had no idea just **how** public they were going when their secret relationship was revealed live on the 11:00 news."

"That's a typical Thorpe reaction," Fletcher sniffed. "Throw the other guy to the wolves to save your own hides."

"I'm merely defending my parents," Blake replied, fixing Fletcher with a flinty glare. "Now, I'm guessing that a big part of your behavior stems from what happened with you and Alex on New Year's Eve at Ed and Maureen's house, but that does not give you the right to take it out on my mother. I know that my mom is perfectly capable of handling you-and anyone else, for that matter-in full jackass mode. I just don't think she should have to, especially when you're all supposed to be putting out a newspaper that, unless I miss my guess, is going to be pretty much devoted to every possible angle of the Fifth Street Fire, which is still considered breaking news, isn't it?"

"And your point?" Fletcher asked irritably.

"My point is you have bigger fish to fry," Blake said. "So go and fry them. And be grateful that it's me and not my father here, because he'd punch your lights out. I'm at least being nice about it." She then flashed Fletcher a mocking smile before turning back to face Holly, signaling that she had had her say and was done with him.

"The Thorpes as one big, happy family," Fletcher said sarcastically, shaking his head. "I think I'm gonna go look out the window and see if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are riding down the street." He turned around and walked out of Holly's office.

"Pull Rosen from Lifestyles to cover Nowitzki's interview with the mayor at 1 before you go looking for an exclusive with Pestilence!" Holly called after him sardonically. After Fletcher had gone, Holly moved around her desk to shut her office door, then turned back to face her daughter. "Blake, that was brilliant! It wasn't necessary, but it was brilliant."

"You and Dad—okay, and I too—have waited too long for this to let anyone rain on your parade," Blake said vehemently. "I wasn't about to let Fletcher get away with behaving towards you like that while I was around, especially when it's obvious he's still sulking over that big fight he had with Alex at Ed and Maureen's on New Year's Eve."

"I appreciate you standing up for me and your father, but I honestly don't care what Fletcher Reade thinks," Holly said. She waved a hand dismissively. "Or anyone else, for that matter. It's nothing they haven't thought for years already, and it's not worth my time and effort to try to change their minds or worry about impressing them. I wasted half my life trying to do that, and I'm done. The rest of the world can figure themselves out and leave me and mine be. It's not their place to approve or disapprove."

Blake looked at Holly, visibly impressed. "My mother, the Zen master," she said approvingly.

Holly lightly scoffed at Blake's assessment. "I just finally know what does and doesn't matter," she replied resolutely. "It's taken me a lifetime to learn it, and no group of small minds with their petty gossip and judgmental attitudes is going to make me disregard it. Now, what were you saying about Vanessa and Matt Reardon? Bridget's brother Matt?"

"Yeah," Blake replied, recognizing that her mother didn't want her making a big deal about Holly's calm acceptance of the jeers and disdain of the so-called good citizens of Springfield as the near-unanimous response to her new status as Roger Thorpe's wife (Maureen and Michelle were happy for Holly and Roger, and for Blake, and because of this, Ed knew better than to say anything disparaging about it, at least in front of them, but the rest of the town would talk as they always did about Holly and Roger once they got wind of their marriage) and graciously going along with the subject change. "It turns out they've been secretly seeing each other for months. They apparently were supposed to meet on Fifth Street the night of the fire and couldn't find each other, so they each feared the worst had happened to the other. When they finally did find each other in the middle of all the turmoil, they had a very public reunion that they didn't know was public. And I'm talking live on the 11:00 news public."

"Wow," Holly said. "I take it their families aren't too happy about their relationship, especially the way they found out about it?"

"Knowing the Lewises, I'd say so," Blake replied. "I saw Maureen at the hospital earlier. She's more hurt that they didn't confide in her than anything else because it's her best friend and her nephew, but she's not angry. But I think she's the only person _not _royally ticked off at them. And of course, the press is all over this, especially WSPR since it was in front of their cameras that Vanessa and Matt had their big romantic reunion."

"I'll bet," Holly replied, wondering idly if Roger knew about this yet.

"Of course, the best part is that with everybody's tongues wagging about Vanessa and Matt, they're the big scandalous story of the moment, way more than you and Dad," Blake concluded gleefully. When Holly just looked at her, Blake replied, "Please. We're happy, Mom. We haven't been taken over by pod people."

Mother and daughter looked at each other for a moment, and then both burst out laughing before settling down to finish lunch.


	12. Blake's Visit With Roger

_January 2, 1995, 1:35 PM—WSPR, Roger Thorpe's Office_

As Blake made her way to her father's office, she marveled at the scene of controlled chaos as everyone milled about like worker ants in an anthill and yet still managed to maintain a semblance of organization. The Fifth Street Fire was the biggest news story to hit Springfield in years, and all hands were on deck to cover it. She wondered for a second if Gilly Grant was being half as smarmily sarcastic to Roger as Fletcher Reade had been to Holly at the _Journal, _but pushed the thought to the back of her mind as she stood in her father's open office doorway and watched him for a moment. He was seated at his desk, his jacket off and tie and collar loosened, coffee cup at his elbow, bent over some papers with a pen in his hand. She juggled her purse and the gift bag in her arms and tapped on the door. "There's the bridegroom," she greeted him happily. "Busy?"

"I'm never too busy for you, Chrissy," Roger replied, beaming at her as he set his work aside and rose from his chair to meet her. They hugged, and Blake then draped her coat and purse over Roger's guest chair as Roger closed the door. "Coffee?"

"Please," Blake replied as she sat down in the guest chair. "I went to see Mom at her office earlier," she said as she accepted a mug of steaming coffee from Roger. "You have the same look on your face that she does." She took a sip of coffee, set the mug on his desk, and then smirked at her father.

Roger smirked back at Blake. "And what look is that?" he asked.

"That look of complete and utter satisfaction that says the honeymoon was fabulous, and you've never been happier in your life," Blake replied, her smirk morphing into a smile of happiness.

"Well, that's all certainly true," Roger agreed, his own smirk morphing into a beaming smile that could only be described as rapturous. It took Blake's breath away to see him like this. To give herself time to rein in her emotions, she picked up her coffee and drank some more. When she set it down again, she took the flat package wrapped in gold foil and tied with gold ribbon out of the shopping bag and held it out to him. "What's this?" he asked.

"Open it and find out," Blake said.

Roger tore into the package, setting aside the ribbon, wrapping, and box lid and peeling back the tissue paper to reveal a silver-framed picture of himself and Holly at their wedding. In the picture, Roger was standing behind Holly's right shoulder, holding her left hand in his right, his head bent to kiss the back of her hand, his left temple lightly touching her right. Holly, her bouquet in her right hand, was facing the camera, the joy in her eyes and the radiance of her smile clearly revealing the love and happiness she felt.

Roger knew that Holly loved him; he knew that she was happy to be married to him. She had told him so, and he had seen it in her eyes and her smile countless times since their wedding. But this picture stopped him and stole his breath in the same way that his earlier smile had taken Blake's breath away. For so long, he had wanted this, and for nearly all of that time, he had despaired of it ever happening. But by some remarkable miracle he was thankful for every day, and by their own hard work and initiative, after everything they had been through over all the years they had known each other, it was finally happening. Holly loved him as much as he loved her, and she was as happy to be married to him as he was to be married to her.

Blake saw Roger's Adam's apple work convulsively as he swallowed hard. As with the picture she had given Holly a few hours ago, she had known as soon as she saw this picture that it belonged on her father's desk.

"Out of all the pictures I took that day, that one is my most favorite," Blake went on as Roger continued staring at the picture, mesmerized. "You have always looked at Mom like she's everything you ever wanted in the world."

"She is," Roger said simply, his voice husky.

"I've been watching you two together ever since you got back together," Blake continued, "and I could see that Mom was a bit guarded at first, but I've also seen your relationship evolve and flourish. I knew it was going to be a lot different for you two this time. I've known that since before you officially got back together, actually."

Roger tore his eyes from the wedding picture in his hands and looked at Blake inquiringly. "Last New Year's Eve," Blake began in answer to her father's unspoken question, "when I came over to tell Mom that Ross had proposed and we were engaged, she kept saying she was in the middle of something. She was preoccupied. I thought she was acting that way because she wasn't really happy for me. When I was finally about ready to walk out in frustration and disappointment, she grabbed me by the arm and led me back to the bedroom where you were in bed with that bullet in your chest. That's what had her so preoccupied; she was in the middle of trying to keep you alive. That part didn't surprise me. But when she told off Ed, that blew me away."

"Holly told off Ed?" Roger asked, surprised. How had he not known that? Oh, right; he'd been hell-bent on finding out who had shot him and had sneaked out of the house after Ed had bandaged his chest before Holly or Blake could come back and check on him.

"Oh, yeah," Blake said. "I got back at what I gather was the very end of it. Ed wanted to turn you in to the police, of course. Mom wouldn't let him. She said she'd promised you that she wouldn't say anything, and that she'd give you the couple of days you wanted to figure out who shot you. Ed said she may have promised she wouldn't turn you in, but he didn't. She really lit into him then. She told Ed that you hadn't done anything wrong, that you were the one who was hurt, and that she wanted him to be a friend and not a responsible citizen for one minute. Maybe if you hadn't gone out the window, you could have heard for yourself how magnificent Mom was." She gave her father a stern look before going on. "When she stood there and looked Ed Bauer right in the eye and told him off and flat out refused to let him turn you in to the cops, that was when I knew that it was different this time. This time, for the first time I could ever recall, it was you and Mom against the world."

"She stood up for me to a lot of people who wanted to see me rot in jail," Roger said, recalling how Holly took it upon herself to go to Alex and ask her to drop the charges against him. It hadn't worked, but that hadn't deterred her from trying.

"Ever since then, you've only gotten closer, and Mom's not guarded with you anymore, Dad. It's like she's not holding back anything anymore when it comes to you. I've never seen her like that. Not ever in all my life, until recently…until she got back together with you and you started really building a life together," Blake said.

She tapped the back of the framed wedding picture Roger held in his hands. "And it's not just in this picture. It's there on her face every time she looks at you. She's finally looking at you the exact same way you have always looked at her, Dad: like you're everything she ever wanted in the world."

"I know," Roger said, again lost in Holly's eyes in the wedding picture.

"I've never seen you or Mom so content," Blake continued. "People always think being content is a bad thing, but it's not. It's the best thing there is, because when you're content, you're satisfied. You don't want for anything. And you and Mom and me… We all spent a really long time looking for that contentment. I found it with Ross, and you and Mom have found it with each other, and even more incredible is that we're all actually getting along pretty well. We've even had family holidays together that were truly fun. It's all just so amazingly wonderful."

"We're very blessed," Roger agreed, glancing up at Blake before becoming lost in the picture again. "I have your mother, and we have you. We're finally the family I always wanted us to be."

"We are," Blake agreed happily as she watched her father stare at the wedding picture with a besotted look on his face. "That picture sure will brighten up this place," she added.

"It'll look even better in my new office," Roger replied, finally tearing his gaze from the picture, which he set in a place of honor on his desk. "This is not for public consumption, but I'm starting my own consulting business."

"Dad, that's great!" Blake exclaimed. Then she thought of something. "Mom knows, right?" she asked, trying to be nonchalant. Blake knew that her father had worked very hard to include her mother in his business dealings when he was going after Spaulding Enterprises, so she hoped that Holly was on board with Roger starting his own company. The further away they stayed from the Spauldings, the better it would be for them and their marriage.

"Of course she does. We talked it all out on our honeymoon. She's being magnificent about it all," Roger replied.

"Of course she is. It's Mom," Blake said, proudly and more than a little relieved. Then she said, "You know, I talked this over with Mom last summer, but not with you. I'm looking for a job. Could you, ah, use any help launching this consulting business?"

"You want to work with me?" Roger asked, surprised.

"Yes," Blake replied honestly. "I've been looking for a job for a while. I am not cut out to be the happy homemaker in high heels and a pearl necklace." She grimaced at the very thought. "I have the experience. And being married doesn't mean I can't be my own woman. I need a challenge that will make me excited to get out of bed in the morning and give me a place to spend my talent and energy." She gave him a cocksure grin and said, "Besides, what's a little nepotism between a father and daughter?"

"I would love to have you working with me, if you're sure that's what you really want," Roger said. "I'm not so sure, however, that your husband will feel the same way."

"Ross knows I'm looking for a job," Blake assured her father. "And he wants me to be happy. I think as long as we don't stage a hostile takeover of Spaulding Enterprises, he can live with it." She paused, then said, "That's not your plan for this company, is it?"

"Definitely not," Roger said emphatically. "I won't be conducting business of any kind with Spaulding Enterprises, Lewis Oil, or any of their subsidiaries, so it's going to take a while to get up and running and into the black."

"All the more reason you could use my help," Blake persisted.

"I have an appointment to start looking at potential office spaces with a real estate agent tomorrow afternoon at two," Roger replied. "You'd better come along. We'll both have to approve of any future office."

"Tomorrow at two," Blake said with a smile. "I'll be ready. Should we meet, or…?"

"I could pick you up at home," Roger suggested.

"Okay," Blake agreed. She leaned back, took another sip of coffee, and, ready for a change of subject, asked, "So, did you hear about all the excitement you and Mom missed while you were on your honeymoon, with the fire and everything?"

"I did," Roger replied. "For once, hell was popping, and I can honestly say I had nothing to do with it. They can't blame this one on me."

"That was my second thought," Blake replied. "My first thought was that Vanessa and Matt caused such a big scandal that they'll get all the media attention that, under any other circumstances, probably would have gone to you and Mom."

"Ah, yes, the big romantic reunion they had in the middle of the street with the fire raging all around them…right in front of Gilly's camera crew," Roger said. "I'll bet everybody's fit to be tied over that."

"Well, Maureen's not, but she's the only one," Blake replied.

"She wouldn't be," Roger agreed. "Still, she must be shocked."

"Oh, yeah, she is," Blake said. "She's just not acting all self-righteous and disgusted like everybody else. She's really great that way." Blake reflected for a moment on how supportive Maureen had been of her and Ross when they were starting out, and that she had also offered sincere congratulations to Roger and Holly upon learning they had gotten married.

"Yes, she is," Roger said. "And once Maureen goes on the record as being supportive of them, everyone else will too. As go the Bauers, so goes Springfield." But for the first time in his life, he said it without bitterness or resentment. Roger had long ago accepted that he would never be considered a pillar of the community; the community hated him too much for that. But he couldn't find it in himself to care anymore, because the opinions of all those sanctimonious hypocrites named Spaulding, Lewis, Chamberlain, Bauer, Grant and Reade held no weight with him anymore. He had Holly and Chrissy. He and Holly were finally married to each other. They had a home, they were beginning a new chapter in their life together, and he was about to launch his own company, with his daughter working with him to boot, that had no dependence whatsoever on the Spauldings or Lewises. He didn't need their approval or acceptance. He was content to leave the madding crowd, as Holly called them, to their own devices, and to watch them pick apart and slander one of their own for a change, like they were doing now to Vanessa for her affair with young Matt Reardon.

"I told Mom that in a few days, when everything has settled down a bit, you guys have to come over, and we'll order in and go over all the wedding pictures. You have to pick one out and get it enlarged to an 8x10 for your mantel," Blake said.

Roger grinned. "I seem to recall about forty-five minutes spent on taking pictures," he said. "How many would you say are in contention for the place of honor on the mantel?"

Blake couldn't keep from grinning back. "No more than a dozen, a dozen-and-a-half," she said. Roger laughed knowingly, and Blake laughed too, happily caught. Seeing her parents so happy and so in love with each other would never get old for her, and she knew that she would be seeing them this way for a long, long time to come.


	13. Touch Base, Then Set Fletcher Straight

_January 2, 1995, 3:31 PM—WSPR, Roger Thorpe's Office_

Roger punched in Holly's office number. She picked up on the third ring, sounding frazzled as she said, "Springfield _Journal, _Holly Lindsey-Thorpe."

"Have I mentioned yet that I love the way that sounds?" Roger asked on the other end of the line.

"Hey, you," she said fondly. Roger could hear the smile in her voice, and the slight easing of tension. "How's your day going?"

"Gilly's behaving like a martinet, but at least it isn't really aimed at me," Roger replied. "I've heard the cameramen and the editing department making comments about Hermann Goering in drag, though." This got a chuckle out of Holly, which warmed Roger's heart. "I've spent most of the day brainstorming for that new venture we discussed a few days ago," he went on. "Chrissy left a while ago. She brought me a picture from our wedding for my desk, and we had a nice chat. She wants to come to work with me."

"That's great!" Holly exclaimed. "She's been looking for something for a while now, something to pour her energy and talent into, and she has a head for business, like you do. She came to see me earlier too. She also brought me a picture from our wedding for my desk, and lunch, and we had a good talk." Holly rubbed at the back of her neck, the tension headache she felt building there subsiding slightly as her gaze fell on the wedding picture of her and Roger now in a place of prominence on the corner of her desk. "Did she tell you she wants to have us over for dinner in a few days to pick out a wedding picture to have enlarged and framed for our mantel?"

"Oh, yes," Roger replied. "She also admitted she has several suggestions for us."

"I don't doubt it," Holly said, amused.

"So, how has your day been?" Roger asked.

"Busy," Holly replied. "It's been like a zoo around here all day."

"I'll bet I know who the gorillas are," Roger said.

"You'd be right," Holly replied, "although I'd say one is more of a baboon."

"Is he upsetting you?" Roger asked, concerned.

"No," Holly assured him. "It's annoying, like a mosquito buzzing around my head, but it's not upsetting me. I made it clear when I got here this morning and they realized how I'd spent my vacation that I don't care what they think, and yet Fletcher won't stop with the snide remarks. Nick even shut up after his initial reaction."

"The next time Fletcher says something, throw your stapler at his head," Roger suggested.

Holly laughed. "I've been tempted to, believe me." She paused, then said, "I take it you heard about Vanessa Chamberlain and Matt Reardon?"

"Yes," Roger said. "Vanessa has no idea the favor she's done for us, and wouldn't be too happy if anyone pointed it out to her, but this thing with her and Matt getting so much attention is keeping us out of the spotlight."

"You know that even if we were on the hot seat instead of Vanessa and Matt, it wouldn't matter to me," Holly said. "I'm yours, you're mine, we have each other and Blake. That's all that matters."

"I know," Roger said. "I just wish it was a little easier for you."

"You make it easy for me to be myself," she said. "That's the only kind of easy I need." She sighed. "I wish I was on the couch with you right now."

"We'll get there," Roger assured her. "Blake and I are going to start looking at offices tomorrow afternoon."

"You'll let me see it when you find one, right?" Holly asked.

"Definitely. I'm sure you and Ross will both be getting the grand tour when the time comes," Roger replied. "Now, is there anything I can do to make today less stressful for you? Besides ripping Fletcher Reade's head from his shoulders and relocating it below his belt, that is."

"Just be there waiting to hold me whenever I get out of here," she told him.

"You can count on it," he promised her.

Fletcher barged into Holly's office then. "You call this a headline?!" he exclaimed, holding up a mockup of the next day's front page and slapping it with his other hand.

"Quick, where's your stapler?" Roger asked over the phone, having heard Fletcher's outburst.

Holly started to laugh again and quickly covered it with a fake cough. "I have to go," she said.

"Take some Excedrin so your tension headache doesn't get any worse," Roger advised.

"How did you—" She started, then stopped. Of course Roger would know she had a tension headache. "I will," she said. "And I'll see you just as soon as I can."

"Not if I see you first," Roger bantered. "I love you, Hol."

"Me too," she replied. "'Bye." She hung up the phone and began rummaging through her top middle drawer for her supply of Excedrin Tension Headache formula.

"How touching," Fletcher sneered. "Whispering sweet nothings over the phone to Roger the Dodger."

"What's the matter, Fletch, jealous?" Holly shot back acidly as she closed the drawer, having located the Excedrin. The look that flashed in his eyes for a second told her she was on to something. It wasn't that he wanted her (thankfully; Holly could never picture that, even in some bizarre alternate universe), but it wasn't merely the fact of her marriage to Roger that was prompting all these remarks from Fletcher. There was more to it…but what?

Before Holly could fully put it together, the look was gone from Fletcher's eyes and he had launched into a tirade about the sensationalistic slant of the headline and how it was more suitable for a tabloid than for a serious, respectable paper like the _Journal_.

As Fletcher continued to rave, Holly quickly swallowed two Excedrin with a few sips of cold coffee, then looked quickly to the wedding picture on the corner of her desk for emotional fortification before saying, "What is sensationalistic about discussing the displacement of the residents of Fifth Street in the wake of the fire?"

The question was barely out of her mouth before Fletcher was off and running again with a litany of complaints. After he ran down again, Holly rested her elbows on her desk, steepled her fingers under her chin, and said, "You know what? I'm the publisher. I say we run it."

"Oh, you're pulling rank now?" Fletcher said. "That is just so…

"So what?" Holly challenged. It was true that Fletcher's remarks about her marriage weren't upsetting her, but as insanely busy as the day had been, it was getting increasingly aggravating. She eyed her stapler, remembering Roger's suggestion to throw it at Fletcher's head.

"Keep the headline!" Fletcher seethed. "But Nick's interview with the fire chief is going below the fold on page one!"

"As it should," Holly agreed.

"All right, then," Fletcher muttered. He looked at the floor for a minute, then looked back at Holly and said, "You didn't have anything to say about the story on Vanessa and Matt Reardon?"

"The facts are correct, what else is there?" Holly asked.

Now he looked surprised. "You're really not going to say anything about it?"

"What do you expect, Fletcher? You want me to gloat because the revelation of Vanessa and Matt's relationship moves my marriage to Roger out of the news? You expect me to celebrate because Vanessa and Matt are being judged and ripped to shreds just because they love each other and they're a couple? Not me. I've been there, I know how lousy it feels. I'm not about to pass judgment on them. I'll leave that to everyone else. I'm sure there's no shortage of takers for it.

"It's hard enough to find and hold onto love and happiness in this world. If Vanessa and Matt have found them in each other, I say more power to them."

Fletcher peered at Holly then, his eyes narrowing. She wasn't sure what he was searching for, but he seemed to find it, because this time, she saw the unmistakable shock in his eyes when they widened again. "Incredible," he said. "Just incredible." Then he looked at her angrily for a minute before turning and stomping out of her office.

"It was fun, as always," Holly muttered after Fletcher had left. She rubbed at the back of her neck with a sigh, waiting for the Excedrin to kick in and hoping that it would keep this particular tension headache from getting any worse than it already was.

_January 2, 1995, 10:47 PM—Springfield Journal, Holly Lindsey-Thorpe's Office_

Between the various reporters coming and going with stories covering every conceivable angle of the fire, and Fletcher's continued passive-aggressive insults about her and Roger's marriage, which more than once had her reaching for her stapler only to return it to her desktop and remind herself that violence is never the answer, Holly's day was so jam-packed that if breathing were a voluntary action, she would have been in big trouble, since she was too busy to remember to breathe, or for that matter to eat any dinner or to have time to talk to Roger over the phone again.

When she returned to her office from straightening out a problem in typesetting shortly before 11:00 that night, she found Roger arranging a couple of to-go containers from her favorite deli on her desk. She just stood there watching him for a minute before she got his attention. "Are you ever a sight for sore eyes," she said.

He turned around and looked at her standing in the doorway, looking stressed and spent but giving him a genuine smile nonetheless. "I knew I had the right office when I saw the name on the door," he said, smiling back at her. "Have you eaten lately?"

"Not since lunch with Blake, and a stale donut in the break room about…" She glanced at her watch. "…six hours ago. What do you have there?"

"Tomato soup and a slice of your favorite cheesecake. I figured comfort food was the way to go," Roger replied. He held out his arms as she entered the office. She walked right into his embrace and held onto him tightly. "How's your headache?" he asked as he just held her.

She rested her chin on his shoulder and closed her eyes as they stood there holding each other, finally having time to take a deep breath, and savoring the feel of his arms around her and her own arms around him. "Better," she said. "Everything's better now that you're here." After a minute, she lifted her head and kissed him softly. "I am beyond ready to go home, though," she said after the kiss.

"How much longer 'til you can?" he asked.

"The morning edition is just about ready to go to press," she replied. "So hopefully, it'll just be a few more minutes."

"So, do you want to eat here, or take it home?" Roger asked. She looked over his shoulder at the food on her desk.

"Let's take it home. I'm honestly not sure I have the energy to eat right now," Holly said. She left the comfort of his embrace to sit down heavily in her desk chair with a tired sigh. Roger moved behind her and began kneading the tight muscles of her shoulders and neck, working out the knots of tension. She closed her eyes again and let her chin drop to her chest as he hit a particularly tight spot near her right shoulder blade with his thumb. "Oh, God, yes," she moaned. He continued gently working the knot out. "Mmm, that feels so good. Don't stop," she said.

"Jeez, do you have to subject the general public to _that_? The rest of us have some standards, which is more than I can say for you, Holly," Fletcher griped as he barged into Holly's office once again.

Holly lifted her head, and Roger's hands stilled to lightly grip her shoulders. And suddenly, Holly knew why Fletcher had been making all those snide remarks about her and Roger being married all day.

"That's it!" she exclaimed, surprising both Roger and Fletcher. "You've been taking your little passive-aggressive shots at my husband and my marriage all day, Fletcher, and all day, I've been wondering why. I admit, I'm used to a certain amount of moral outrage from the people of this town that I've chosen Roger as my mate, but I don't have to explain myself or apologize to anyone for living my life. My life and how I live it are none of their concern. And it's not like you and I are friends. Colleagues, yes. But you being concerned about my love life is just unlike you, unless it pertains to the running and/or content of this newspaper, which this definitely doesn't.

"When I asked you earlier if you were jealous, you didn't deny it." Roger's hands suddenly tightened on Holly's shoulders, and she reached back and laid her palm on top of his left hand in reassurance. "I was being flip when I said that, but you didn't deny it. And that didn't make sense either, because, again, you don't think of me that way, and I certainly don't think of you that way." Roger's hands relaxed after Holly said this, but she left her hand covering his.

"But now…now I get it," Holly continued. "You **are** jealous, because Roger and I are happily married, and you and Alexandra are apparently on the rocks. You think that you and Alex are more deserving of happiness than Roger and me, and it just galls you to no end that Roger and I have it and you and Alex don't. Well, let me tell you something: we have worked and fought for years, for **decades, **to find our way back to each other and to get to this point. We have **earned **this. How dare you think that you deserve it more than we do because you're more upstanding than we are!"

Fletcher looked taken aback. "I never said that," he protested weakly.

"You didn't have to, you said everything else," Holly retorted. "And you'd better have gotten it all out of your system today, because my marriage and my personal life are not up for debate. I know I can't stop the gossip, and I really can't find it in myself to give a damn if the rest of this town wants to talk about me and my marriage behind my back. I have heard it all before anyway, about what a fool I am, and how evil Roger is, and how crazy we both are to be together. Well, you can all go right ahead and think that, but you can all also stop trying to save me from myself, because I don't need it.

"I really don't know why everyone insists on continuing to rehash ancient history, but I'm really sick of it. I married the man I love. People do this with some regularity all over the world. Instead of criticizing me and my choices, tend to your own life and your own relationship. I don't need the approval or the blessings of the world in general, or the self-righteous, haughty good citizens of Springfield in particular. I have exactly what I want, and for the first time in my life, I'm happy. So go ahead and think that I've lost my mind, and that Roger is the devil incarnate. I told you this morning that my personal life is none of yours or anybody else's business. It has no bearing on how I do my job, which is the only thing I am here for—to do a job."

Holly packed up the food Roger had brought, and he was jolted out of the trance her vigorous defense of him and their marriage had put him in when she pushed her chair back from her desk, bumping his shin in the process. He backed up as she concluded, "Now, I have been here almost twelve hours. You can put the paper to bed, Fletcher, and just this once, I'm fine with you doing whatever you need to do to get the morning edition on the street on time. As for me, I am going home with my husband and forgetting this place even exists until tomorrow afternoon. And when you come barging into my office in the days and weeks and years ahead, the only topics we discuss will relate to the content and the running of this newspaper. Are we clear?"

"Clear," Fletcher said, still looking stunned.

"Good," Holly replied. "I'll see you tomorrow, after twelve." She put on her coat and gathered the bag of food and her purse. "Let's go home," she said to Roger.

Fletcher looked at Roger, clearly seeing the way Roger looked at Holly, a look that the rest of Springfield would come to know well in the years ahead whenever they saw the two together, the mingled awe of and adoration for her obvious in Roger's eyes.

This wasn't the first time Holly had defended Roger to Fletcher, but this time, Roger was there to see and hear it for himself. Fletcher had known that Holly had feelings for Roger; she had admitted as much in so many words. But seeing their faces in the wedding picture on Holly's desk earlier and the glow of contentment about her, and now being on the receiving end of her impassioned defense of Roger and their marriage, Fletcher now knew for certain what he had suspected all day: that Holly really, truly loved Roger. More than that, Roger and their relationship…correction, their marriage…came first with her. And **that **was the real reason for his snarking.

Holly had been right: Fletcher was incensed that she and Roger Thorpe, of all people, were happily married, while he and Alexandra were falling apart at the seams because of Alex's obsession with keeping Alan from taking back too big a chunk of Spaulding Enterprises now that his prison term was over and he was home again, and her continued insistence on trying to micromanage Nick's life, and Nick's marriage to Mindy.

Fletcher knew he and Alex had caused a scene at Ed and Maureen's on New Year's Eve, but what was so wrong with trying to convince Alex to forget everyone and everything but him long enough to ring in the New Year? What was he really asking for but five minutes of her undivided attention, and he would have settled for one minute of her undivided attention for the countdown to midnight and the first kiss of the new year. But she couldn't even give him that. Alex wouldn't stop complaining about Mindy, who had taken Nick to Cross Creek for New Year's Eve, so Fletcher had blown up at her in the Bauers' kitchen. She had yelled back at him, they'd gone back and forth arguing for a few minutes, and then Alex had stormed out of the party in full view of all the rest of the guests, including Alan and Hope. Hope had encouraged Fletcher to hang in there, saying that Alex was still getting used to Alan being back home and actively involved with the company again, and they all knew how she felt about Nick being married to Mindy, and that in time everything would settle down. But at the rate things were going, it wouldn't be long before there was nothing left for Fletcher to hang in there for, because Alex never had time for him or them anymore.

Alex simply did not put Fletcher first, or seem to have any interest in doing so.

Holly _did_ put Roger first, and was very interested in continuing to do so, from what Fletcher was seeing.

The incongruity of this ticked Fletcher off, because he did think he and Alex deserved happiness more than Holly and Roger.

But Holly and Roger had it, and he and Alex didn't.

He knew he and Alex were in trouble when Roger and Holly, despite their toxic history, ancient though it may be, had found love and happiness with one another, and he and Alex couldn't seem to pull it together enough to make their relationship work lately.

While Fletcher was ruminating on the sheer absurdity of life, Roger and Holly made their escape. They were both silent as they made their way to the parking garage. Roger grabbed Holly's hand under one of the safety lights in the garage to stop her. She turned to face him as they stood in the pool of fluorescent yellow light shining down on them. He said, "You were magnificent back there."

"It wasn't a stapler to the head, but I got my point across," she replied.

"I'm serious," he said.

"So am I," Holly replied. She touched his face and looked deeply into his eyes. "Nothing Fletcher said today upset me in the least. But he annoyed the hell out of me and made me angry with his running commentary all day on the disaster he deems our marriage to be.

"He doesn't know you. He doesn't know us. None of them do. None of them will ever see you the way I do, we know that. But I refuse to stand idly by while they continue to condemn you for things that happened a lifetime ago, and condemn me for loving you," she continued. She ran her hand down to rest over his heart. "All of their moral outrage and sanctimoniousness can never change two fundamental facts: that I love you so very much, and that we belong together. There's a reason we kept stumbling in and out of each other's orbit all those years: we had to get to a place where we were finally old enough and wise enough to do what we needed to do to get us right.

"The rest of the world can say whatever they want behind our backs. They will anyway. They have for years." She slid her arms around his neck before concluding, "But as long as I am breathing, no one is going to tear you or our love and our marriage down where I can hear them, or they're going to hear from me like Fletcher just did. I don't care what they think they know, because they're wrong. I know who you really are, and that's the man I love. Being married to you, having what we have… That is all I want, and it is all I will ever want."

"I would never want them to see me the way you do," Roger confessed, pulling Holly closer. "When they look at me, all they see is the man I was, the man who did all those horrible things, and the fact that they can't see me as anything else shows in their eyes.

"But when you look at me…" He stroked her cheek lightly with his thumb. "You asked me once when I would know that I have enough. The man I've become, the man I'm still becoming... Now, I am nothing more or less than what I see in your eyes when you look at me, and that's enough. This life with you, and wherever it takes us…it's enough."

Misty-eyed, Holly leaned in to kiss him, but the kiss was pre-empted by her yawn. "That wasn't my response to what you just said," Holly said sheepishly.

"I know," Roger replied. He kissed her forehead. "It's almost midnight. Let's go home and fall asleep in each other's arms."

"That's the best offer I've had all day," Holly said as they continued their walk to Roger's car and then drove home.

**The Hope mentioned in the same sentence with Alan Spaulding is Hope Bauer Spaulding. On the show, she and Alan were married once upon a time, and they had a son you might remember named Alan-Michael. I'm totally disregarding the show's history like I did with Maureen. As Maureen is still alive and married to Ed, Alan and Hope are still married, and in fact, thanks to inspiration from a fellow GL fan and collaborator of mine on other projects who's a huge fan of the Bauers and Spauldings, Alan-Michael has a little sister, Alan and Hope's daughter Faith, who you'll be meeting in the next story. Faith is actually my collaborator's creation, but she's needed in the next story...along with Maureen, Hope, and a lot of other characters. **


	14. Tonight and the Rest of Our Lives

_January 6, 1995, 9:27 PM—Roger and Holly's House_

The fire in the fireplace was blazing, casting both light and warmth over the otherwise darkened living room. The open bottle of wine on the coffee table was almost empty, and the two wineglasses resting beside it were completely empty. The open pizza box sharing the coffee table with the bottle of wine and wine glasses held three slices that had long since grown cold. One pair of black pumps and one pair of brown wingtips rested on the floor beneath the coffee table. A solid gray necktie lay on the floor half under the couch. Two jackets—his double-breasted navy blue suit jacket and her gray blazer—were tossed across the chair.

The quiet of the room was broken only by the occasional muted murmurs and sighs of pleasure from the couple happily lost in one another's kisses and caresses on the couch before the fire. The long work week was finally over, as was the exhaustive summation of every aspect of the Fifth Street Fire by both the Springfield _Journal _and WSPR, and Roger and Holly were celebrating with the bottle of wine, roaring fire, and couch time—with the addition of a pizza for dinner—they had waited for since their return home four days earlier.

The ringing of the phone intruded on their dreamy state of bliss. "Machine?" Roger mumbled, tearing his lips from Holly's neck to utter the single word, knowing she would understand that was his shorthand way of saying, _Should we let the machine pick up?_

"Machine," Holly mumbled back before pressing her lips to his, knowing he would understand that was her shorthand way of saying, _Yes, let the machine pick up._

The machine dutifully picked up after the third ring, and following the beep, the voice coming through the speaker was one they both recognized. "Hey, newlyweds! I don't want to interrupt anything, but how about dinner tomorrow at our house? I've organized **all **the wedding pictures in an album, and we can order in…how about Chinese?...and you can pick your favorite picture to be enlarged for the mantel, and Dad, you and I can decide where in town we want to look at more offices next week, okay? Call me tomorrow. And don't do anything I wouldn't do…which gives you plenty of latitude."

"Blake!" Ross yelped, exasperated.

Blake just laughed happily. "Talk to you tomorrow. Bye!"

Holly's shoulders shook with laughter as she sat up, and Roger was smirking. "Our daughter is incorrigible," he said, amused.

"Because she takes after her father," Holly replied, also amused.

"I believe her mother has an incorrigible streak too," Roger said.

"Me?" Holly asked innocently.

Roger gestured to his shirt. "My shirt buttons just flew open all by themselves, did they?"

"How do you know they didn't?" Holly replied. "You were so involved in tracing the shell of my ear with your tongue at the time that you wouldn't have noticed if the house fell down around us, much less exactly how your shirt came to be unbuttoned."

"And here I was going to praise your powers of concentration," Roger said. "The last time I did that, you melted and couldn't form coherent words. Tonight, you managed to get my shirt totally unbuttoned while I was doing that. I'm impressed."

"Well, that was more about determination than concentration," Holly replied. "I was determined to get your shirt unbuttoned, no matter how much I wanted to melt at what you were doing. And while we're on the subject, I seem to have a few less buttons done up than I did when we sat down here." She gestured to her own blouse, the top three buttons of which were undone.

Roger grinned. "Well, after all, I am incorrigible."

"And I wouldn't want you any other way," Holly replied, grinning back. "You or Blake." She laid her head on his chest then, resting her hands on his shoulders. He wrapped his arms around her and gently rubbed her back.

"Tired?" he asked.

"Not sleepy tired, just the 'I don't want to move from this spot' kind of tired," she replied. "It was a long, stressful week, and I'm glad the work part of it is over."

Roger frowned, but Holly couldn't see it. This wasn't the first comment she'd made about work being stressful this week. He knew part of it was the insanity surrounding the fallout from the Fifth Street Fire. And being the publisher of a daily newspaper was not a relaxing job by any means. But she had mentioned on Wednesday night that Fletcher was still very prickly, though he hadn't said word one about Roger, or Holly marrying him, since Holly's first day back at work after the honeymoon, and that Nick was preoccupied with something, though she had no idea what, so it had to be personal, and none of that was making Holly's job any easier. The burden would ease somewhat come Monday, now that the fire was no longer breaking news, but Roger still hated that Fletcher's sullen attitude and Nick's preoccupation were stressing out his wife.

Roger had gone to WSPR that afternoon, and while he was there, Gilly had asked him for a meeting on Monday morning. He had no idea what she wanted, since the work half of his energy and attention had been devoted to finding an office for himself and Blake (their search would also resume on Monday) and getting ready to step out on a very large limb launching his own business.

He wondered if Holly would be open to returning to WSPR if the opportunity presented itself; she and Gilly had always gotten along fairly well. At least, Holly seemed to get along with Gilly better than she did with Fletcher or Nick. He made a mental note to look into the possibility that there might be an opening at the station equal to Holly's talent, and if there was, to float the idea to her and see what she thought about returning to work there. If she wanted to stay at the _Journal, _Roger would support her decision, but she really hadn't seemed to enjoy her work for a while now, and she might be happier professionally somewhere else, whether it was WSPR or some other news outlet.

He left his musings about work for Monday morning and returned his full attention to the woman lying in his arms.

"I could stay like this all weekend," Holly said, nuzzling Roger's chest.

"I could too," Roger said, "but if we do, I'm picturing Chrissy bursting through the front door like a SWAT team when we don't show up for dinner."

Holly laughed as she pictured that. "She'd do it, too," she said, lifting her head to look into his eyes. "Okay, except for dinner with Blake and Ross tomorrow night, I could stay like this all weekend, holed up here with you, lying in your arms."

"Just all weekend?" Roger asked.

Sensing where he was going with this, she said, "You have a different time frame in mind?"

"I was thinking the rest of our lives," he replied.

"The rest of our lives," she repeated. "I used to think that was how long I'd have to live without you. Now it's how long I get to be with you."

He took her hand and kissed it. "You're the proof that life is good. You are my life."

"And you are mine," she replied. Still holding his hand, she sat up, then tugged on his hand as she stood up. "What do you say we clean up tomorrow, and go to bed now?"

"Yeah, it's getting late, and the fire is almost out," Roger noted as he got to his feet.

"_That_ fire is almost out," Holly said, glancing over her shoulder at the fireplace. "But this one…" She looked back at Roger as she stepped into his personal space and wrapped her arms around him. "This one is going to be burning bright and steady for a very long time."

"Forever," Roger said, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"Forever," Holly agreed before kissing him, a long, slow, deep kiss that stole his breath. When they parted, Roger swept Holly up in his arms and carried her to their bedroom.

And they were right: that fire would burn bright and steady between them for a very long time, a perpetual flame of love and home that would light their life together through all its ups and downs for decades to come…for that cold January night and for the rest of their lives.

**This concludes "Tonight and the Rest of Our Lives." Roger and Holly's married life continues in my next story, "Storm," featuring them, Blake and Ross, Maureen, and several other Springfield residents. I hope to start posting it this weekend. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned, because there's a lot more to come!**


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